YP Letters: Privileged but ignorant after horrors of Dunkirk

Are children taught enough about historic events like the Dunkirk evacuation?

Further to Andrew Vine’s article in (The Yorkshire Post, July 25), I, too, was astonished to learn of his young relatives’ ignorance concerning big events in the Second World War.

I had two brothers caught up in this horror, yes brothers, not grandfathers or a father, but my dear older brothers, both in the RAF – one in North Africa and the younger in the “forgotten” war in India and Burma.

They were away from home for five years and were completely changed men from the schoolboys they had left home as and, as a result, I never enjoyed a “normal” brother/sister relationship with them.

Having just finished reading Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind, written by Sean Longden, I do not think I shall be rushing to see the new film at the cinema.

The facts given in Mr Longden’s book are so upsetting and horrific and so little known that I, as someone who grew up with the story of the “miracle” of Dunkirk indelibly printed in my mind, find it almost hard to believe.

I recommend that Andrew’s relatives read this book. It is why they are so privileged in their lives today.