A Sapper's Story
1940-Retreat to Dunkirk
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A Sapper's Story
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Narrated by:
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Angus King
They blocked the roads. They blew the bridges. They built the lorry piers.
France and Belgium, May 1940. The German advance has broken through the Allied line. The British Expeditionary Force is falling back towards Dunkirk.
Donald 'Donnie' MacIver is a Sapper with the 59th Field Company, Royal Engineers. A Glasgow-born shipyard riveter from the Partick tenements, he joins the Army as war begins.
As the retreat gathers pace, Donnie and the men of Two Section are sent wherever work is needed. They clear routes, prepare bridges for demolition, fight as infantry when required, and keep men moving while everything around them is breaking down.
On 27th May 1940, at the Ypres-Comines Canal, three Royal Engineers field companies fixed bayonets and counter-attacked. Sixty soldiers did not come back.
A Sapper's Story-1940-Retreat to Dunkirk is a ground-level account of the men too often left in the background. The Sappers who held the route open to Dunkirk whilst the army fought its way home.
The first novel in a six-book series following Donnie MacIver and the Royal Engineers from the outbreak of war to its end. Written by a former Royal Engineer, with a foreword by Lieutenant General Sir Mark Mans KCB CBE DL, former Chief Royal Engineer.
©2026 Billy MacLeod MBE (P)2026 Billy MacLeod MBE