Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Queue of soldiers stretche Nazi planes dive-bombed us doubted we’d be saved... it
Veteran Arthur Taylor is in no doubt about what the phrase “Dunkirk Spirit” means. He is one of the few men still alive today who truly, painfully, knows.
Now, a lifetime from that “hell on earth” on the beaches, the 96-year-old former airman recalled the inferno of Dunkirk 77 years ago as he sat in his son’s home in Christchurch, Dorset.
And sitting on the sofa that day next to him was The Dark Knight and Inception director Christopher Nolan.
He listened intently to Arthur’s descriptions of Operation Dynamo, the inspiration behind his new blockbuster film Dunkirk, which features Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy and pop star Harry Styles.
Aged only 19, Arthur was among the nearly 340,000 desperate Allied troops who queued and prayed to be rescued by any boat possible while dodging Hitler’s bombs and bullets.
And as the plaudits for the film roll in, there is only one thing Arthur cares about – that the world understands the true meaning of Dunkirk Spirit.
For him, this was a final chance for the story of his comrades’ ferocious resilience and courage to be heard.
As Arthur recalls his discussion with Nolan, it is as if a weight has been lifted from his frail shoulders, sagging under his hefty medal hoard.
“I have been feeling the country has forgotten about Dunkirk and needed reminding,” he says. “Dunkirk was the most important thing that ever happened to this country. We need to know what happened there.”
Clutching my hand this week in that same living room, he leans in and adds: “You would be speaking German to me if it had not happened. I told Christopher the same.
“The only people who can tell you about Dunkirk Spirit are the people who were there.
“Everyone mucked in, and we believed we would be saved, we never doubted. It was a miracle. People risked their lives to save us on the beaches.
“When the director was sitting here, I believe he understood that. I never saw Dunkirk as a defeat, it held the Germans up. They were going to invade – and they didn’t.” Around 198,229 Brits were among the Allied troops who huddled on those beaches from May 27 to June 4, 1940, after Hitler’s forces advanced and cornered them.
A heroic fleet came to their rescue as German Stuka bombers and Messerschmitt fighters hammered them. An armada of Navy ships plus 800 “Little Ships” – fishing trawlers, steamers and pleasure craft – set sail across the Channel.
Arthur recalls the “hell” he made sure Nolan could see.
“The queue of men went on for miles, and was 10 to 20 wide, as aircraft with screaming sirens, piercing enough to deafen you, dive-bombed and targeted us with machine gun fire,” he remembers. “We could only crouch down and pray it was not our turn.”
He told Nolan about the trestle tables that were hoisted out of the cabin of a ship to lie across a bombedout hole on the pier on the east jetty of the harbour, known as the mole, so the men could clamber to boats.
It is a detail faithfully recaptured in the film. Seeing it there, and hearing the noise of Dunkirk recreated, was a powerful experience when Arthur was invited to the film’s London premiere on Thursday night. “Nolan got it right,” he says. “The queue, hours long, how crowded it was, the dive bombers that came over. The bodies that would wash up in the water,” he adds.
“People clapped and clapped after the film, and outside there seemed to be thousands of people applauding us. Kenneth Branagh said it was a privilege to know me. Tom Hardy also wanted to meet me. They got the message about what we did, they really did.”
The message reached Kensington Palace, too. Before Arthur walked the red carpet, he was invited there to meet Prince Harry, who said: “What you’ve seen can’t be unseen.”
As they waited for Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge unexpectedly walked towards him with Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
“She said she was taking them to play in the gardens, but saw us and had to come over,” he says. “She said she wanted them to shake my hand. F C s
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