While working on the Ward at Chesterfield an old veteran told me of his time in the Army. He was sent to Dunkirk with thousands of others, he managed to dodge the bullets and bomb on the beach at Dunkirk from the German Luftwaffe and managed to get aboard one of the tiny flotilla boats and made it back to Blighty. He was then sent back to fight in Europe eventually ending up in the African Desert.
While on patrol they were attached by the Italians with machine guns and he was hit twice in the back with two bullets. He was lucky to survive and he was then put on a Red Cross ship bound for England. The ship then got word that they were ordered to go to the nearest friendly Port which was Oman and that all the injured would be taken off the ship, and would be left on the dock side, attended by the Nurses and Orderlies.
The ship then set sail to pick up Troops which were needed urgently elsewhere. Soon after, the enemy Planes were overhead and bombs were dropping onto the docks, and surrounding areas. Many of the wounded did not survive and were killed. Days later the ship returned and picked up the injured men and women and they made it back to Britain, and there he recovered from his injuries.
He was then to hear that his next deployment came through that his regiment were being back to fight in the War in the Desert with Monty….
He was in his Eighties when he told me his story, he did survive.
