243978 Harold Douglas "Deane" Deane British Army 5th Batallion Gloucester Regiment Story Submitted to local newspaper.
Sir - It was very interesting to read the story of the 5th Glosters retreat from Ledringham prior to their evacuation form Dunkirk in 1940.
I would, if I may, like to add one or two facts to that story! I was, on that day, one of a party of six men in a trench on the edge of the village, waiting for the German attack. On the previous evening we had taken part in a bayonet charge in the main street of Ledringham, also hoping to dislodge a sniper from the church tower.
The next day, however, we dug our trench and settled in. By late afternoon things seemed to be very quiet. Then at dusk, we heard a motorcycle approaching.
It turned out to be Pte. B. Johns, our despatch rider, who had come to warn us that the Battalion had pulled out of the village hours before. We were to make our way, as best we could to the coast.
Darkness was falling and the windmill (mentioned in your story) was almost destroyed, the church was ablaze and we made our way through a field of red cabbage with German tracer bullets slicing through the cabbages at regular intervals. In retrospect, rather a funny sight!
Having picked up one or two stragglers, we made our way, without a map towards Dunkirk, with the instinct of a homing pigeon.
Marching on through the night we arrived just after dawn, a mile to the east of the town to be taken off some 30 hours later by a destroyer.
Others may have their own stories to tell, but I thought this might be of interest to some of your readers. We did not all escape the bed of the brook as Mr Walter Lord suggests in his book "The Miracle of Dunkirk"
H. D. Deane
(late 51849561 5h Battallion, Glos. Regiment)
He died in 1994
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