A Useless Death.(2)

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Here is the second extract from my father's WW2 (1939-1945) memoirs, but don't worry if you didn't read the first one. It can be read on it's own. These are my father's own words. "After being in France for a while without sight of the enemy, we heard that the Germans were playing hell and going on the offensive. They confirmed their caddish status by simply going round the impregnable Maginot Line and striking through Belgium, which was virtually undefended. (Note from Jabo - Dad was being funny when he called them caddish). We were told to evacuate, but first we had to sabotage or blow up anything that could possibly be of any use to the enemy. We then had to move out, and make our way to Dunkirk which was the main port of evacuation. I mentioned before that I was issued with a rifle for the first time when I boarded the ship for France, and while at Bolbec I had joined a voluntary group who felt they would like to learn how to use this strange weapon we had been given. It's worthy of note that apart from the 'regulars' in our outfit, we volunteers were the only ones to receive any form of weapon training. Prior to moving out, someone eventually decided that that there ought to be a little rifle instruction, and all these lads were lined up on opposite sides of the road, facing inwards, and were shown the intricacies of loading. In my instruction class I had become friends with an old regular soldier who had been a machine gunner stationed in India. With true old soldier's instincts he looked at the set-up of soldiers on either side of the road, and dived for the ditch. Being a quick learner, I was beside him fractionally later. Inevitably, as the untrained soldiers closed the bolts, a round went into the breech. As triggers were squeezed to finish the operation, half of them didn't know to keep the muzzle in the air, and shots were flying round like bonfire night. It would have been funny, but of course it can't all be farce, and one of our friends went down. He seemed to have a neck wound, but actually the bullet had hit his belt buckle and ricocheted up, so the neck wound was the exit hole. Quite dead. A friend had enlisted with him from the same town, and subsequently had to go to see his mother and lie his heart out. He could hardly tell her the real story of such a useless death." ---------------------------------------------------------------- If you would like to read the first one of these excerpts please click on the tag 'My Father's Memoirs' above the title. I will do some more of these if enough people are interested. Photo is of my father.