Dunkirk hero’s letter home from the horror

Harrowing account up for auction

A LETTER by a sailor describing how he found soldiers “burnt to hell” during the Dunkirk little ships evacuation has come to light.

Lieutenant Walter Bonham commanded a small vessel which ferried troops back to Britain while being divebombed by the Luftwaffe in May 1940.

Survivors were comforted with whisky and somehow the damaged motor cruiser made it back to Kent.

Lt Bonham, who was from a long line of distinguished officers, penned the harrowing six-page letter to his father Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bonham from a hotel in Margate.

He wrote: “I was in a continuous air raid for five or six hours at the end of which the boat broke down, smashed, and full of splinter-holes.

“Most of the poor devils, in addition to being burnt to hell, had been in the water and were almost dead from exposure and exhaustion. I had to cut the wet clothing off most of them as they were too badly burned to be undressed.

“I stripped them, rubbing them all over till I sweated blood, and then wrapped them up in blankets with beer-bottles filled with hot water as hot water bottles.”

Lt Bonham also describes pulling a dozen men from a burning ship from the water “single-handed”.

The letter is expected to fetch £800 to £1,200 at a Bonhams auction tomorrow.

Also part of the lot is his service record and his father’s understated reply: “Your telegram received. Well done. Harry doing well. God Bless, proud of you.”

Lt Bonham served on HMS Exeter in December 1939 aged 19, which took on the German “pocket battleship” Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of River Plate. He was killed in action in 1943, while his brother Harry died of wounds sustained in action on board HMS Fleetwood in June 1940.

BRAVE Lt Walter Bonham

EXTRACT Part of Lt Walter Bonham’s letter describing the soldiers he helped to rescue

EVACUATION Survivors climb ladder to get out of sea at Dunkirk. Below, the letter