Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

61 Sean Longden Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind (2008) explains: “ Hour-upon- hour, mile-upon-mile, day-after-day, they walked. The feet of dejected and defeated men shuffled over the cobblestones of seemingly endless roads. Shoulders hunched, staring at the ground in front of them, they moved ever onward. Beneath the searing summer sun the starving rabble continued their journey into the unknown. Like remnants of some pitiful ancient tribe sold into slavery, they shuffled forwards. Stomachs shrunken and throats parched, they hardly dared to think of food and water that might bring salvation. Some were half-carrying, half dragging their sick and exhausted friend. Others too weak to help the sick, were forced to abandon their mates at the roadside. … Desperate men summoned up their last vestiges of energy and fought for scraps of food. They dropped to their knees in ditches just to drink from the dirty brown water. …As they walked they listened to the shouts of their guards - screaming at them to hurry up- and to the cries of their comrades as blows rained down on those who hesitated. Whips, sticks, truncheons and rifle butts beat the offender back into line. For some the end to their misery came quickly, as the marching men listened for the tell-tale rifle crack that meant someone had finally given up and been executed by the roadside.” So, my father’s new role as a POW began with a march from the French coast to Germany, and on to Poland. In late May 1940 he walked 250-300 hundred