Tpr. Andrew Jeffrey Evinou
Bristih Army 4th Btn. Royal Tank Regiment
from:Edinburgh, Scotland
Andrew Evinou was a Trooper with the 4th Royal Tank Regiment of the British Army during WW2. He served in France as part of the Eighth Army and was rescued from the beach at Dunkirk. As their ship was leaving the dock, tea was announced down below deck. My dad never turned down a cuppa. While he was below, a Messerschmidt riddled the deck, where my dad had been sitting. A young man who was resting his head on my dad's knapsack was killed. Dad couldn't retrieve it until after they docked in England, and after the ship had cleared the deck of the dead. This had to be done before allowing any waiting family to go onto the dock. After a weekend's leave, dad was sent to North Africa.
The picture I am sharing was taken in the African Desert. It was featured on the cover page of a Mid Eastern publication, called Parade. The picture was lost to our family. A year after my dad died, I travelled to the London Newspaper Museum, from Canada, in search of it. Fortunately I was able to find it, I held it close to my heart and cried. That picture as you can imagine, has become a treasure.
In June of 1942, my dad was captured at Tobruk, where their tanks were an easy defeat for the superior enemy tanks. Dad was a PoW, from then till the end of the war, and was listed as Missing in Action for a year. He was first a Prisoner with the Italians, then with the Germans. He spent time at Stalag V111C and worked in the coal mines as part of a Work Group. He participated in and survived the Great March.
Andrew died in October 2006. Lest We Forget
