David Mowatt recalls horrors troops faced after being left behind during the Dunkirk evacuation

After Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, David Mowatt saw his call-up as an adventure. What came instead was a bloody introduction to combat, followed by a 5-year fight for survival as a WWII POW. By January 1940, David's battalion was in France with the British Expeditionary Force and straight into intense action: raw recruits against the battle-hardened Wehrmacht. While holding out against the Germans, David and his comrades were still expecting to be evacuated. But then Churchill gave orders that they were to fight to the last man, keeping the Germans at bay to enable the Dunkirk evacuation.

Dunkirk survivor on horror of troops stranded after evacuation - The Daily Record

 

"it's always Dunkirk, Dunkirk, Dunkirk, ...." i agree we often look only at the obvious without asking some important questions.

 

You might be interested in this if you are in the UK.

How The Rest Got Home
Wednesday, June 2, 11:00 on BBC Radio 4

Synopsis

The miracle of Dunkirk carries an air of finality about it in the popular mind. More than 300,000 troops evacuated, ending Allied - especially British - involvement on the Continent.
But this is simply untrue.
Nearly 200,000 non-French Allied troops continued to see action in France, some only arriving after Dunkirk.
How The Rest Got Home tells some of their stories: those who survived the sinking of the Lancastria (Britain's worst-ever maritime disaster); those who founded the escape routes to the south coast of France; those who only reached home after five tortured years in German captivity, following humiliating capture at St Valery-en-Caux. There were SO many different ways back.
The programme hears from a string of veterans in their late 80s and 90s. There's Henry Harding, whose leap off the Lancastria saved his life - he still has the watch he was wearing at the time, its hands frozen. Scotsmen Bill Crighton and Andrew Cheyne recall the sheer terror of Rommel's bombardment at St Valery, and the emotion of their eventual return to Aberdeen after five years' hard labour as German prisoners.
On archive tape, Helen Long remembers the cloak and dagger business of hiding and protecting post-Dunkirk escapees in the brothels of Marseilles.
Presenter and military historian Saul David has been a close observer of the forgotten stories of continuing heroism and tragedy after Dunkirk. He visits the Normandy coastline where much of the action took place.
An Andrew Green production for BBC Radio 4.

Broadcast

Wed 2 Jun 2010
11:00
BBC Radio 4

 

So often the glory goes to those who were in front of the people, those who held the line so others could be saved truly are forgotten.
Bravery is knowing you are the rear guard, holding the line for others and still doing your duty so others can live!

 

This is a very interesting subject as my (now retired) ex-boss once told me how his father had been captured by German forces in northern France while part of the BEF. If i remember correctly he said they had been told to hold a position for 2 days and on the morning of the 3rd day to make their way to the beach for evacuation. Suffice to say those who survived until that time were not evacuated at all but marched off to a camp in Poland for the next 5 years.
The names Crighton and Cheyne all fit in with this as the man in question was from Stonehaven near Aberdeen, I believe he was called William Smith and was part of the Gordon Highlanders.
Truly forgotten stories.