It is exactly 70 years since my late father, Don Quarrie, was on the beaches at Dunkirk.

He was a 23-year-old captain in the West Yorkshire Regiment, and like thousands of other Allied servicemen, he had been forced back to Dunkirk by the encircling German army, and most especially the panzers (tanks) of General Guderian.

My father waded into the sea up to his chest and then was dragged on to one of the many “little ships” which were so gallantly ferrying the troops out to the waiting big ships. Dad scrambled up a net on to the decks of a British destroyer.

Dad could never understand why the German armed forces did not just pour on into Dunkirk and wipe out or capture the totally defeated, unarmed, tired and dejected Allied servicemen.

Hitler and the German high command could not believe that the Allies were in such a weak position, and Hitler ordered his forces to stop on May 24, 1940.

This gave my father and thousands of others the breathing space to escape and reach Britain. But for that huge mistake, I probably would never have been born.

David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.