Arrival in England
Heroes Remember
Arrival in England
Interviewer: ...period of time, May 10th began the invasion of
France in the low countries, do you recall those events that
would have happened at roughly the same period of time?
Very much so. We joined 110 squadron at a place called Old Sarum,
and I can tell you the details of how that transpired, too.
And the squadron had been alerted, that they were due to go to
France. They had arrived in February and they were due to go
sometime in April, but because of the advancing of the German
Army through Belgium and London and into France, they
withheld it. And it, I think today how fortunate I was, that when
I arrived there, it was the 28th or 29th of June, you know the
full invasion, in fact it was almost Dunkirk day, that I was
lucky that I hadn't joined the squadron earlier, I was lucky that
there was events had taken place to stall the transfer to the
continent. And I suspect, I would have been a POW for the balance
of war, five years. Interviewer: So you, you arrived in Great
Britain, in the, at the end of May, 1940? Mmm hmm.
Interviewer: Virtually, France had been virtually overrun,
the low countries had fallen, Poland had been taken the fall
before, the situation was starting to look grim,
were you aware of how serious the situation was?
Very much so, because it was only a matter of days after we
arrived there, perhaps a week, when Dunkirk took place.
And I think everybody's aware of Dunkirk, the evacuation of the
troops from France to England, and all the boats that were
scurrying over there. We became very much aware of it,
because there was a big army base near Salisbury,
where we were located and the troops coming back, these guys
had been shelled and bombed and strafed and God only knows what
for days or weeks. Really had no use for the air force because
they, they said there was no air cover. And that we were very
much aware and when you heard the stories about these people
coming back, and how easy the invasion had been, we became
quite aware that it could happen in England. Although we were
only young, I was nineteen, and you didn't think an awful lot
ahead of time but it was a bit scary alright, to realize
just what had happened with Dunkirk.
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