"MORE 'PLANES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 147, 22 June 1940, Page 7

"MORE 'PLANES."

SOLDIERS' CRY.

AFTER DUNKIRK.

"WHERE'S THE AIR FORCE?"

MEN AGAINST MACHINES.

Men of the 8.E.F., back from the inferno of Dunkirk, were bewildered by the lack of 'planes to light off the German dive-bombers. The British people know of the great and historic achievements of the R.A.F. But the heroes of the B.E.F. know only of their own bitter experiences. What they are asking (reported Ritchie Calder in an article published on June 4 in the London "Daily Herald") is .what the R.A.F. and everyone \slse is asking: "Give us more 'planes."

A hospital train roared through the station on the express track. The sergeant of a Midlands regiment to whom I was talking through the of a stationary troop train (Mr. Calder wrote) ducked out of sight. The men with him flopped on to the floor. The tea they were drinking went flying. "Thought it was a dive-bomber," said the sergeant, grinning sheepishly as he rescued a sodden meat pie. "When you've had them coming at you, fifty at a time, for three weeks, you don't stop to think. You duck."

His mates were laughing at each other. "You've ruined your Sunday suit, Harry," said one, mopping a youngster whose battle dress hung on him in tatters, his torn trousers stiff with sea water.

But behind that miraculous laughter, which the indomitable spirit of the B.E.F. has salvaged out of Hell, was the bitter reproach which these men have brought back. /

"Where's the Air Force!"

Train after train has stopped here, so that the men can cat —some of them are Ihaving their first meal for 48 hours. Everyone to whom I spoke, in the darkness and in the daylight, officers and men alike, clamoured:

"Where's the Air Force?"

Nightmare Reality.

It is 110 good recounting to those men—bloodstained, unsliaven, red-eyed and haggard from the worst ordeal that men have ever had to face—how the R.A.F. has won countless victories, shot whole squadrons out of the sky, checked from the rear that army which followed them to Dunkirk. For them there is only the nightmare reality of wave on wave of German 'planes—bombing, machine-gunning and deliberately murdering the . stretcher cases waiting on the sands at Dunkirk. In one compartment, in which men were 'cheering and singing, was a youth sitting quietly, his tea and his meat pie clutched in his hands.

He was not drinking or eating. "Can I 'help to get you something?" I asked him. He sat up, his face full of pain and anger. "They murdered my brother over there," he burst out. "They murdered him. They came down and shot him. Why didn't the Air Force stop thetai?" He caught his breath in a convulsive sob. Then drank his tea.

Guns Were Red Hot. | "We can lick them," said an artillery officer, "if we can get the 'planes to head off those bombers. Our boys are marvellous."

And he went on to tell how his battery had been covering the retreat to Dunkirk.

"We kept firing," he said, "until the guns were red hot. The men hadn't slept or eaten, but they kept at it. All the time the Jerries' 'planes kept coming over. It was hell. And behind them were the troops. We had to abandon everything." Almost as terrible as the dive-bombers were the six-inch mortars, dropping highpowered explosives from, he estimated, about three miles. "They are quickfiring and utterly devastating," he said. Others described the shock troops coming over with "tommy guns." "Their equipment is better than ours," said one of the Shropshires. "They came over with quick-firing stuff and we just set our teeth and gave

them what we had got. We were more than a match for them in spite of everything, and their casualties were terrific.'

The Guards Charged.

The grimmest and greatest storv of all was told by the men of the King's Yorkshire Light Infantry.

"There was a wall of machine guns facing us. They were mowing us down," said an N.C.O. "We couldn't have held against it, and we had nothing to answer them with.

"But the Guards fixed bayonets and charged—men and cold steel against a barrage of bullets. They cleaned up."

Over and over again, in the retreat and in the last stand round Dunkirk, it was the Guards who accomplished incredible feats of valour.

And it was the Guards who, with barrack-square discipline, marched on to the quay at Dunkirk. Their brigadier formed up 'his own and men from other units and coolly marched them on to the ship through a barrage which had been laid down all round them.

"Dunkirk" is scorched into the minds of these men.

"Fifteen miles we retreated in one day," said one, "with Dunkirk our only hope. The town was on fira. Some took shelter in cellars. And some who did were unlucky. Thousands of others gathered on the beach.

"The Jerry 'planes came over time and time again—we lost count —and bombed and machine-gunned us. Stretcher cases were laid- out waiting to be taken aboard ship. The Nazis machine-gunned | them."

Surrender No Safety. "It was bad enough the way tliey attaked us," said a private in the Sherwoods, "but what they did to the civilians was wor/e.

"After the Belgians surrendered, tliei villagers hoisted white flags everywhere. The steeple of Poperhinglie had white flags draped like bunting. The Nazis drove out the people and murdered them

j "Surrender did not save them —-men. women or children."

Train after train brought - French troops through my wayside station. Like their British comrades, they were gaunt, unshaven, desperately hungry, but unconquerably cheerful.

They cheered the British troops who had been working as willing orderlies all through the night, plying the B.E.F. with unlimited food and drink. <