258652 Capt. Herbert Derrick Bell Lorraine British Army Royal Army Service Corps from:Oxford Late Cadet C.Q.M.S., Glenalmond (Trinity College) Contingent, Officer Training Corps. Bertie Lorraine was commissioned on the 31st Dec 1938, Royal Army Service Corps - Supplementary Reserve of Officers. He was mobilized the 24th Aug 1939. From 1938 to 1940, he served with British Expeditionary Forces in France, where he was wounded and captured. From 1940 to 1945, was a POW (No. 1565) at Oflag VII-B in Eichstatt, Bavaria.
On or about the 27th May 1940, during the Battle of France, Derrick Lorraine sustained a gunshot wound to the leg. Whilst in the ambulance, he was captured by an advancing German panzer division. On the 29th May, he was forced at pistol-point out of the ambulance and made to hobble over to the Blockhouse North of Cassel to ask the Gloucestershire Regiment soldiers commanded by 2Lt Cresswell to surrender. He shouted "Wounded British Officer here!" and hobbled over to the entrance to the blockhouse. In a low voice, he then said "˜Do not reply" and pointed to a dead German soldier nearby. "There are lots of those around here", he continued, motioning with his eyes toward the roof of the bunker and making Cresswell understand that they were on the roof of the bunker. He then hobbled on away from the bunker and back to the ambulance. He had no intention of trying to get them to surrender. He was then transported to Offlag VIIb in Eichstatt and remained there for the rest of the war.
Derrick was my uncle and never spoke to his sons about the war. The story above is recounted in some of the Dunkirk history books, one of which is Dunkirk: The History Behind the Motion Picture by Joshua Levine. In this book, he is recorded as an artillery officer, this is a mistake, as he was RASC not RA.
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