WANGANUI DOCTOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24336, 28 June 1940, Page 9

WANGANUI DOCTOR

SAW TWO EVACUATIONS LIEUTENANT M. GRACE (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, June 4. A New Zealander who took part in the evacuation of the Hook of Holland and Boulogne with a Guards regiment was Lieutenant M. Gi'ace, of Wanganui. A fully-qualified doctor, he is attached "'to the regiment as medical officer. The Guards were sent in on both occasions as relief in a difficult position. Artillery spat at them, aircraft bombed and machine-gunned them. There were several casualties, but the New Zealander came through unscathed, although a Fifth Columnist sprayed tracer bullets at him in Boulogne as he dashed across a street. His only injury occurred in a British port after a successful return. During an air raid warning he well while hastening for shelter and cut a hand slightly! “We were bombed at the Hook all one evening after the Jerries had droned over us all day,” said Lieutenant Grace. “ Several of our wounded were killed, but we got the others into a destroyer safely. We also saw Queen Wilhelmina on a station, where she held a ‘reception,’ wearing a tin hat. She waved good-bye to us before getting aboard. . ■ , “ We were bombed again next morning, and later I went off with a party to find some of our dead and to see that they were buried. We were spotted by a Jerry, who dropped five bombs at us. Why nobody was hit, I can’t understand. We lay flat on our faces, swearing at our gas masks because they kept us another two inches off the ground. Bushes Stripped “Each bomb came nearer than the last. It seemed certain that one would get us. But none did, although the blast from the explosions stripped the leaves from the small bushes round about. “While we were evacuating, four Blenheims circled over us for a time, and the Germans flew of!) They returned when the British planes had disappeared. Our destroyer was bombed frequently on the way back to England. None hit us, but one dropped 50 yards away, and it was near enough to be uncomfortable. The Germans came at us without warning, diving with the sun behind them. “ When we landed at Boulogne there was not a great deal going on. We took up our posts and were attacked in the evening by a tank column supported by artillery. But it was_ a minor affair and the Germans withdrew. They came at us again in the morning and pressed the attack home. “The order came through to hold on at all costs, and later we were told to retreat. The chaps firing their Bren guns and anti-tank rifles until they jammed with overheating. I saw five tanks cleaned up on the way to the wharf. After getting the wounded on a destroyer I went back to the regiment still in the town, and then we got back to the wharf again and were among the last to get away. “The troops were grand I would be happy to go with them anywhere. The navy was terrific. Two destroyers were fired on as they.came up to the wharf, and one was hit and had to turn back. The other backed in between the wharves, where it was partly sheltered, and blazed away at a German battery on the ‘top of a hill about 400 yards away. “ Steel splinters were flying everywhere, but the naval men kept firing as though they i\’ere at practice. The troops went aboard as 'though nothing were happening, quietly and self-pos-sessed. Actually. I found this waiting and doing nothing under fire the most trying. When there is a job of work to do, you don’t seem to notice what is going on. But it’s trying when you have nothing to do. “Being machine-gunned by a plane is not very pleasant, either. They came for us when we were at the Boulogne station, and we had to crouch down by the rails under the platform, I didn’t like it much either when a Fifth Columnist peppered me with tracer bullets as I was crossing a street. 1 tore over like blazes and could see the stream of bullets just behind me! “On both trips I had to leave my kit behind, and so 4 lost two complete outfits, which was not so good.” Lieutenant Grace is an old boy of the Wanganui Collegiate School, He studied at Otago University before going to St. Bartholomew’s in 1935.