So Much for a Romantic View of War: What I Learned as a Child

By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad

The flag of Scotland.

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It was conspicuous! A huge black and white photo of a soldier with a military peaked cap dominated the wall of my grandmother's house in the old grey town of Dunfermline, in Scotland. As a child I was deeply curious. I kept asking, “What was the story of my late Uncle Alan? I asked, "What did he do during the war?"

My mother scolded me, saying, "Stop asking questions about Uncle Alan. It upsets your grandmother." My grandmother was reticent. But she showed me a box where she kept a lock of his hair and shiny golden buttons of his uniform which still smelt of polish.

But his story remained elusive. It was clear that my grandmother was still upset at losing her only son. I also found it disconcerting that my cousin Sheena kept telling me how I resembled my Uncle Alan.

Then finally my Uncle Jim broke the silence. My Uncle Alan had served with the British Expeditionary Force sent to fight the Germans in 1940. The relentless speed of the German advance {The Blitzkrieg or lightning war} drove the British army back to the beaches of Dunkirk. The British and French Forces were stranded awaiting rescue by the British Navy who launched Operation Dynamo. {For anyone seeking historical details I recommend Chapter 5 of “The World at War” by Richard Holmes, Edbury Press, Reading, 2007 and Chapter 7 -- The Fall of France, May -June 1940 from “The Second World War,” by Antony Beevor, Orion Books, London, 2014}.

My Uncle Alan and his fellow soldiers were asked by an officer to guard the retreat with a machine gun at the end of a road {with a Maxim machine gun, a Bren gun}. But when they looked back, the officer and the other soldiers had vanished. They had fled!

So the soldiers decided to do likewise and also ran away. They ended up on the beaches of Dunkirk. But they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. German dive bombers called Stukas were swooping down on them. They had to constantly duck.

One version of the German Stuka dive bomber.

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A German Stuka makes a horrendous sound. Many of those planes had a siren attached to their undercarriage aptly called Jericho Trompeten. This made the grotesque drone of a mosquito only much more magnified. The scream of those planes was a terrifying psychological weapon which could unsettle the bravest men.

Well one Stuka dived to drop a bomb so my uncle and his friend got down for cover. After the Stuka had left my Uncle called to his friends. But nobody got up. They just lay there mute. They were all dead. He was shattered by this. But he kept his wits.

My Uncle quickly realised that if he remained on the beach any longer he would also perish.

Then he looked at the sea and noticed a distant ship. It was very far away. But before the war my uncle was a keen sporstman who was a great swimmer. Though the ship was some kilometres away he just might reach it. So he plunged into the sea and swam. He swam, swam and swam on. The distance seemed without end. But he reached the ship and was fished out by the crew.

Luckily the ship was British. He was utterly exhausted. He was physically and mentally worn out. But he got back to England.

He later died of cancer. I heard it was brought on by incessant smoking. When I naively asked my mother why he smoked so much she bluntly retorted, "You'd smoke like him if you had been through what he had."

After that, my romantic view of war was quickly dispelled… and of course I did grow to adore swimming.