You help people remember what our war veterans will never forget
Jeffrey Haward was one of 558,000 Allied soldiers who were evacuated from Dunkirk between 26th May and 4th June 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo. This is Jeffrey’s story.
“In 1939, I was 18 years old and living in Finchley, North London. I reported for duty on 1st September when the Germans invaded Poland - three days before Britain declared war. My mum wasn’t happy – my father had lost a leg in the First World War and died from complications when I was just four years old.
I was in the 1st and 1/7th battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. We went to France in January 1940. By 26th May, when the Belgians surrendered, we were at the border of Belgium and France. Our colonel sent us on a patrol across the River Lys; a blue staff car came up the road. We shot the driver and an officer in the back.
Another officer jumped out and ran off, leaving behind a briefcase, in which, were the plans for the German 6th Army, which was advancing on Dunkirk. This intelligence meant my machine gun battalion could be strategically positioned along the Comines Canal and from here we managed to stop the Germans advancing into Dunkirk for a few days."
During the evacuation, the Luftwaffe attacked whenever the weather allowed, reducing the town of Dunkirk to rubble and destroying 235 vessels and 106 aircraft. At least 5,000 soldiers lost their lives. Although the Germans took more than one million Allied prisoners in three weeks at a cost of 60,000 casualties, the evacuation was a major boost to British morale and enabled the Allies to fight another day.
"After the Germans got past us I was ordered to report back to company headquarters. A sentry on duty tried to stop me – it was dark and he’d mistaken me for a German. I told him I couldn’t stop and he shot me. Luckily he wasn’t a great shot and it hit my shoulder, just a flesh wound. That soldier’s name was Johnny Hunt and he later told me he’d been aiming for my head! We had a good laugh about it. Then, much later on in the war, he was killed and I had to bury him.
After destroying all our ammunition and vehicles – anything the Germans could use -we started towards Dunkirk. We made it to the beach and when it got dark we made our way into the water and waited in there for hours. With first light, we’d be easy targets for the Luftwaffe so we eventually got out of the water, and went back onto the beach and kept moving towards Dunkirk.
The Germans were shelling the beach heavily. We saw a coaster - a shallow-hulled ship used for trade - lying on its side on the beach. It was on fire and looked like it had beached, but we saw people getting into it. We got closer and saw they were burning rags in 50 gallon drums to make it look like an abandoned vessel. My gun crew and I went down the ladder into the vessel. It was packed. There were hundreds of men down there.
Once we were safely on board I suddenly felt so tired - I hadn’t slept for two or three days by this point and had been losing blood from where I’d been shot. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up I could feel the boat going up and down - they’d managed to refloat it when the tide came in. I fell back to sleep and the next thing I knew someone shook me awake and said we were coming into Folkestone. That was 8am on 2nd June. It was such a relief to be home.”
You’ve helped more than 58,500 Second World War veterans and their families to visit the places where they saw active service.
(Image above from: ‘Fighting Hitler from Dunkirk to D-Day' published by Pen and Sword Books)
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