Don’t forget those of us who fought on at Dunkirk
WHILE not wishing to detract from the brilliance of the Dunkirk operation and the bravery of all those concerned, which has been featured in a new film, but no mention is made of those who stayed behind to try to delay the German advance.
I was a member of the 51st Highland Division and we fought on until June 12 when we were trapped in and around the seaside town of St Valery-en-Caux.
We were bombarded all day by land and air and the town was ablaze.
Our commander was forced to surrender to Rommel and most of the division were captured and spent the rest of the war as prisoners.
I escaped the night before. Along with a chap called Turnbull, we pushed out into the Channel on a large door some time after 10pm and were picked up by a trawler early the next morning. I arrived home from France dressed only in a blanket and my socks.
After recovering, I saw a request for volunteers to join Bomber Command and signed up. I flew in Lancasters, was shot down and held as a PoW in Stalag Luft 3. ROBERT LESLIE RUTHERFORD,
North Hykeham, Lincoln. WHEN it seemed there was no longer any hope of rescuing the British Army trapped at Dunkirk, in a radio broadcast, George VI called for a National Day of Prayer to be held on May 26, 1940.
Thousands of special services were held across the country and millions poured into churches to pray. Crowds queued outside Westminster Abbey. After this Prayer Day, a violent storm over the Dunkirk region grounded the Luftwaffe, which had been slaying thousands on the beaches, followed by a great calm descending on the Channel, enabling hundreds of little boats to sail across and rescue 338,000 soldiers.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Henry Wilson, later wrote: ‘If ever a great nation was on the point of supreme and final disaster, and yet was saved and reinstated … it does not require a religious mind to detect in all this the hand of God.’
REV J. WILLANS, Leigh, Surrey.