Alf fought in the British Army retreat to Dunkirk. He was driving a staff car for a senior officer. A Humber Snipe, it had a compass on the dash- board and a Lewis gun mounted in the rear. During a bombardment he and the officer crawled under the car for cover. A shell exploded at the side of the car and the officer took the blast down one side. Alf drove him to a field hospital and left him there. He instructed Alf to take the car and head for Dunkirk as it was intended to evacuate the remains of the British Army from there.

After some miles, the road became impassable because of craters and rubble, so Alf took to the fields. He covered a considerable distance through meadows and growing crops nosing through hedges where there were no gateways. Eventually he attempted to jump the car over a wide ditch, landed badly and splayed the front wheels. He abandoned the car, wrenching the compass from the dashboard and continued on foot. He was not alone. Groups of soldiers straggled along the Road and the nearer the got to Dunkirk the more they met.

Passing a farm, he heard someone groaning behind the gate, It was a soldier, too ill with dysentery to walk ant further. Alf took a wooden wheelbarrow from the deserted farmyard and wheeled him the rest of the way. He never found out his name or his eventual fate.

He spent some days on the beaches. He spoke of diving for cover when enemy planes strafed and when there was a lull, collecting the dead.

Offshore, keeled over in the shallow water, was a sunken ship. Alf and a like-minded soldier he had met up with swan out to the wreck and climbed on board. There they stayed for some time. They found a table set for a meal and the food was still edible. Late in the afternoon they spotted an abandoned rowing boat out to the sea. They tossed up to see who should swim out to it and Alf lost. He brought it back and late in the afternoon, the pair set off to row the channel. The sea was flat calm. During the hours of darkness they were picked up in mid channel by one of the small boats.

As they landed, the rag-taggle troops were dispersed so they could be cleaned up and re-kitted.