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through the day, slowed down now by an ever increasing number of civilians with their belongings, all heading for the coast. I don’t think I’d ever seen such variety, in the forms of transport used. There were people walking, carrying suitcases and bags. Perambulators were very popular, loaded with everything other than babies, handcarts being both pushed and pulled, cars, vans and buses, horses and carts, ponies and traps. Probably, most incongruous of all, an old Citroen Butchers van, loaded to the gunnels and being pulled by a horse driven by an old bloke sitting on top of the cab roof. Perhaps though the most worrying aspect of this procession was the number of dishevelled, dejected looking French soldiers who had swelled its ranks.
    Military Police and Belgian Civil Police drove up and down, doing their best to keep the traffic flowing, but there was no doubt, chaos was starting to take hold.
    We had got hold of some Spam and were enjoying this spectacle whilst eating our Spam fritters with the usual brew up, when the stillness of the evening was shattered by a terrible wailing and roaring. All around us columns of earth shot up into the air on both sides of the road. In stunned silence we watched as the refugees fled for the cover of the trees. The sky went dark and the banshee wailing increased. Looking up, we could see the cause, as the Stuka’s swooped down following up their attack. There were five in total; the two who had already released their bombs were climbing back skyward, while their three mates came down in close formation, their sirens making a terrifying roar.
    Suddenly what was going on around us went home. I threw down my sandwich and shouted to the lads “man the gun!” Ronny had the angles worked out before I’d finished speaking and on his instruction Jack had the gun elevated to a line the planes would have to pass as they started their climb back.
    “Ready!” shouted Fishy as he stepped back from loading the gun.
    “Fire when ready!” I shouted back to Ronny.
    There was the usual muffled boof that you get with this type of gun; I watched it recoil as the whole process was started again. We could get off fifteen rounds in a minute but with a swiftly moving target like the Stuka’s accuracy and timing were the requirements not speed; similarly there would be no point in putting in tracer shells as the aeroplane would be long gone by the time we saw where we were.
    We fired a total of thirty shells after the Stuka’s, and I was fairly sure we had hit the fourth of them although it continued on its way seemingly unharmed. However, I think that our shots and similar ones from other guns in the battery did probably deter them from coming back to use their machine guns on the civilians. The downside was now they knew where we were.
    People started to climb back out of the ditches and cover, where they had sought shelter. Now that the planes had gone they began to attend to the dead and wounded. I think we would have all liked to have gone across and helped but the Lieutenant shouted over to us to tell us to remain with the gun.
    Eventually all of the casualties had been dealt with, and as darkness fell, the refugees continued their slow trek down the road towards the coast.
    I was last up the next morning, after sharing the last guard duty with Fishy from 02.00 until 06.00.
    It was 10.30 and as I drank my tea I noticed that on the road there were fewer refugees but more army vehicles, including quite a lot of French.
    I also noticed that some of the other units that had been in positions close by us had gone. Presumably, at some time after 06.00 because they were still there when I went to bed. I saw Lieutenant Davies heading towards us and I expected he was coming to tell us to get packed up.
    I was wrong, what he did come to tell us was that, with the exception of our battery, all of the rest were withdrawing to a line nearer to the coast, we had been chosen to cover the retreat. Once he