Dunkirk is my specialist area. If anyone wants to know anything about Dunkirk just ask. I have over 400 books on the subject and close to 1,000 unit war diaries covering the BEFs time in France between Sept 39 and June 1940.
Going back to the original poster. Do you know the unit he was with and what Port he docked at? I may be able to narrow it down with this info. Sadly, I suspect due to the chaotic times, there are no nominal rolls that I know of that list men to evacuation craft.
Cheers
Andy
Andy my Father was at Dunkirk He was paymasters clerk to one of the battalions of the Northamptons.
He would never open up about the horrors of the evacuation, until one drunken night in Ostend on one of the dunkirk vets pilgrimages. The scene was about eight vets sitting around a table of a Small estamine drinking brandy, then the conversation turned to where were you in 1940. the stories were pretty gruesome, it was then that someone said about the Massacres at Paradis and Wormhout and my father said to my suprise that he was so close to one of them that he heard the machine gun fire. Now this is over 45 years ago, and my mind has become a bit befuddled and can't remember the details. But after that night he opened up on a few occasions and the horrors that those guys went through was horrendous.
He was on the beach at La Panne and was strafed by an ME 109. They all cowered down in the dunes, once the plane had gone he turned over and shook his driver who was next to him he was dead two bullets in his back, shook the other guy next on the other side same thing. Although a jovial man all my remembering part of my life, there always seemed to be some underlying sadness.
He was finally picked off the beach at La Panne on the second and disembarked from a Ramsgate trawler at Ramsgate on the morning of the 3rd. And he still had one up the spout when he handed over his .303.
My Mother who was newly married to him in September the year before, said that he suffered flashbacks and nightmares for months after that.
Sadly we lost him just after his 65th birthday and the memories I wished I could have gleaned from him were gone forever.
Time to apply for his war records and find out where he was for the rest of his long war. I know he went to Scotland and Ireland just after Dunkirk but the rest is a mystery as service books were not filled in in time of war.
