EVACUATION AT DUNKIRK

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23036, 3 June 1940, Page 7

EVACUATION AT DUNKIRK

Account by Naval Observer TROOPS’ COURAGE PRAISED (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) (Received June 2, 8.30 p.m.) RUGBY, June 1. Something of the terrible conditions under which British and French troops have been and are being evacuated from Dunkirk and of the British discipline of the men, can be appreciated from an account of the evacuation given by a naval eye-witness. “I spent all day on Thursday at a south coast base where ships that brought the army off came and went,” he said. “For days and nights there had been a continuous stream to and fro of transports, destroyers, sloops and trawlers coming back crammed to the utmost capacity with men. They had been shelled by coastal batteries and bombed almost ceaselessly from the air.

“They embarked thousands from beaches, the men wading out to their armpits to reach the boats. They embarked tens of thousands from piers and jetties, beating off German bombers with their guns while the troops climbed on board, and they told me of men of a Scottish regiment who scrambled on to a destroyer forecastle in the last stages of exhaustion and joined in a fusilade with their rifles trying to shoot down low-diving bombers. “I was on board a destroyer In the afternoon that had just come back from the beaches. She had had 52 bombs dropped over her and she had lost her captain, but she came back crammed to capacity. Voyage to Dunkirk “I stepped into another destroyer about midnight. It was calm, clear and starlit, and the sea was like a millpond, As we approached the French coast we could see German searchlights wheeling nervously to and fro and suddenly a battery fired. # Our guns swung round but they were not firing at us. We could see tracer shells soaring up towards the stars, presumably aimed at our coastal bombers. “There was a dull glow of fires along the horizon and ‘flaming onions’ bursting into red flares. We wriggled our way through the minefields until .we were nearing Dunkirk, Oil tanks were still blazing furiously, • and there was an occasional sound of distant gunfire. By the time we reached Dunkirk it was light enough to see the outlines of the town buildings still standing black against the glare of fires and vast clouds of smoke billowing away to the eastward.

. “And it was light enough to see assembled the whole length of more than 1000 men of the British Expeditionary Force waiting patiently for embarkation. There was a French , destroyer already alongside, filling up with men. There was a trawler alongside also, but she had been sunk by bombs and only her masts and funnel were above the water. “No Army in Defeat" “Scaling ladders were' raised, and down came the troops as fast as fullyequlpped and fully-armed men could climb. This was no army in defeat. They looked in magnificent fettle, ruddy, burly, and wearing full equipment, but dog-tired fighting a .rearguard action day and night for a week. “Then a bomber appeared overhead, and we opened fire. A French destroyer came ih through the entrance firing as she came, followed by a BrD tlsh destroyer. The embarkation continued calmly, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. “German shells began bursting at the end of the mole with methodical regularity, but hitting nobody, about one every minute. A few stretcher cases arrived, carried by men too tired to avoid stumbling. As each was lowered on to the gun platform between bursts of fire, a surgeon bent over each case with a morphia syringe in his hand. We were full up at last, every inch of space on . the deck and below crammed with men. Already many were asleep where they lay. “As we went out, we met another of our destroyers coming In. Tired men raised a croaky cheer as she went past. The English Channel was an extraordinary sight as the sun rose. It looked something like Henley Regatta, as if every craft on the south coast that could float was heading for Dunkirk and its beaches to finish off the Job. There were barges, yachts, launches, and little boats in the tow of bigger boats, and presently up through the middle -of them came an overseas convoy from the other side of the world. ‘Overhead, swooping to and fro above this incredible scene, was a squadron of Spitfires.” . The account concludes with the expression of the opinion that unless the men of the British Expeditionary Force are exterminated and the men who brought them off from the piers and beaches are exterminated and all memory of them is blotted out, we cannot lose this war.