The
spirit of Dunkirk.
“ SKIPPER” ALBERT STROUD was bosun on an 866-ton
yacht, Narcissus, when
war broke out and the Navy took her over.
Her name was changed to Grive, because the Navy already
had a vessel named Narcissus, and she was being adapted by the
Fleet Air Arm for
salvaging fallen aircraft when the grim
reality of war came to Albert.
"It was the morning of May 29 . . first thing after breakfast a squad came aboard and ordered us to proceed to Dover. We could
see the French refugees coming down the
channel and sandbarges were loaded with civilians
and cars—so 1 guessed we would be heading to
Dunkirk."
In fact, he was to make four journeys to
Dunkirk; the lives of 3,300 men would be
saved thanks to the bravery of Albert and his crew. Like the thousands of other seamen who took part in the greatest
of all rescue attempts, they worked nonstop night and day. "I put on my life jacket that Wednesday morning—and I wore it
until it was taken off in Chatham hospital on Sunday."
Born
and brought up in Whitstable. Kent, the son of an old sea-going family, Albert, now 82, recalls that he already knew
Dunkirk and the Belgian coast, -like the back of my hand—I'd been there in the
First World War." He chose to take the long route, by the Goodwin lightship, past Calais, following a
channel that had been cleared by a minesweeper. Albert
remembers: "On
the first trip we went as near to the shore as we dared— the beaches were black with
men. It was pitiful. But I felt proud to
see our troops still marching in long columns in spite of the bombing. The
stretcher cases were in front and the walking wounded
set the pace behind. We used our
small boats to ferry the men aboard
until they were loaded like sardines,
while our two guns blazed away at enemy aircraft. We arrived back at
Dover after midnight and reloaded with
stores and rum, which we dished out
to the troops." That was the
end of the first of Albert's 12-hour
trips.
On the second run, the Grive was .able to go into harbour as the wooden east pier had been repaired after a bombing raid, and the men were able to step aboard. "As we left, a cheer went up. Our guns had
scored a dirrect hit on an
aircraft which exploded over the sea. We needed to take ammunition
aboard before leaving for the third trip, but when we got back to Dover
we found we had to move berth to make room for another ship—the delay would have been
too long, so we left with only 12 shells
aboard. When we returned to Dunkirk that evening, anti-aircraft guns
were firing away, and bombs falling. We berthed alongside a hospital ship, its
rails lined with nurses, waiting as calmly
as if they were on a summer cruise.
But the noise of the guns and the
bombs seemed to draw the breath out of me."
On the way back to Dover they stopped to pick up the survivors from a bombed destroyer.We were jam-packed
full of survivors when we got back to Dover on Saturday, June I. We
had our first meal for days, loded on more
stores and prepared for the fourth trip. 'You have done a fine job,' the
Captain told
the men, We are going back now because there are still some troops to bring back, but
any man who cannot face another journey is at liberty to go ashore.' But the men stayed with the ship and
reached Dunkirk at dusk.
"I went
around the ship seeing all the crew
at the action stations, then took my position between two skylights, watching the fires of Dunkirk over the port bow and listening to the bombers overhead.
Suddenly I heard an • explosion. I felt
the decks shudder, my legs go, my
teeth drawn out of my gums, my
clothes ripped off. I was up to my
chest in water —the deck rose like a wall Albert managed to force his
way clear
and two sailors pushed a raft
across to him. They waited until they heard the ,first boat which came to their rescue. Only 17 of the crew
of 43 were picked up and taken back to Ramsgate on Sunday morning.
Skipper
Stroud was taken to hospital in Chatham. His
injuries were so severe that it was 16 weeks
before he was well enough to be
moved to Epsom for a further 19 months in hospital.
Frederick Stroud:-Grandson Email:-familystroud1@gmail.com
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