Return Via Dunkirk

by Gun Buster [Pseud], John Austin

A soldier's plain, personal and unvarnished story that has become a classic. Deeply moving in its stark realism, an entirely personal story, written with an ironic amusement and a lightness of tone that render all the more urgent the sense of the greatness of the issues.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

Reviews

[Scifimoth]

A remarkable and well-written telling of early events in WW2 leading up to the withdrawal from Dunkirk, all the more compelling because it was written and published during the war. The horrors of war are understated, but I found them all the more impactful given it would have needed to be approved by British censors at the time. It is a very personal perspective of the events from a Captain of an artillery regiment, with details like observing the German's success rockets on your flanks and knowing that you are about to be overrun, how they went about destroying their guns and vehicles, and standing in the sea waiting in line for hours to be rescued by boat.