Colonel (ret.) Adolf Kaleta

“It was on October 28 and I drove the Cromwell tank. We seized some land and on November 5, there was another large attack, where I was unfortunately wounded in my legs. We were advancing in the German territory and the Germans were in bunkers, and I shouted into one of the bunkers. ´Alles raus! Der Tom ist da!´ Everybody get out. The English are here. The Germans called the Englishmen Toms. They crawled out of the bunker like cockroaches, carrying a white flag. I remember it so well. Some ardent German threw a hand grenade, which bounced away, but I still got some fragments from the explosion in my legs. So that is how I took part in the fighting for Dunkerque.”

“I remember the company commander Oberleutnant Geistrike shouting: ´Alles zurück! Alles zurück!´ Everyone come back, because the Americans and Englishmen were pushing us there. I said to one of my friends: ´You know what, damn the Germans, we will wait here in the trenches.´ We thus disregarded the German order and we remained in the trenches and waited for the Englishmen and Americans to come for us. We waited for them. We thus did not attack the Englishmen or anything like that.”