YP Letters: Miracle of Dunkirk stands as a testament to British bravery

My late father, Don Quarrie, was an officer with the West Yorks Regiment in 1940 and was sent to France with the BEF. He was on Dunkirk beach for several days. He told me much about his experiences.

His job was to smash/put out of action as many army vehicles left on or near the beach as possible, wrecking radiators etc. He was firing with a rifle at low-flying Luftwaffe aeroplanes. Quite futile but good for morale. Along with others he soon ran out of ammunition.

Luckily the weather was bad, with much cloud cover and the Luftwaffe could not operate on some days. Dad had to threaten to shoot some French officers who had abandoned their men and refused to queue for rescue ships as everyone else was doing.

He had to wade out to sea, get in a small boat which took him and a few others to the side of a British destroyer. He then had to scramble up nets on to the ship’s deck. He then got a hot drink and some food, but not much.

The Welsh Guards on this destroyer drank some of the hot cocoa but used the rest to shave in. This mightily impressed my dad. When the destroyer reached England most of the troops got off any way they could, but the Welsh Guards marched off under command, again much admired by all.

Dad was amazed how many were rescued, and how much bravery all round was shown. He could never understand why the German Wehrmacht and especially the Panzer groups halted where they did, rather than continue their speedy, efficient, ruthless forward progress up to and onto the beaches. Dad and the others had literally nothing with which to resist them other than barricades and bare hands.

Truly a military miracle. Hitler could not believe that the Allied forces could so easily be defeated. He feared a trap and called “halt!”

From: Janet Berry, Hambleton.

I saw Dunkirk, on its first showing and was not disappointed. You see so many films about the wars showing the Americans as the great heroes but this depicts how brave the ordinary English men were, risking their lives in their various boats to rescue our soldiers from the beach. Superb and very moving.

The only fault I could find was it showed about 20 boats instead of hundreds travelling towards France which was rather underwhelming. Maybe it’s just me, but, although I shed a patriotic tear, the thought was there that there were not enough boats.