THE rapidly-diminishing band of surviving Second World War veterans has now got a little smaller with the death of David Evans, of Leyburn.

At 102-years-old, Mr Evans was Wensleydale’s last remaining Dunkirk veteran, having been rescued under the noses of the advancing German army by the flotilla of small boats ordered there by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in May 1940.

Joining the Army in 1936 as a regular soldier and initially training as a cavalryman, Mr Evans transferred to a mechanised unit, the 13/18 Royal Hussars. Amongst the first to go out to France in September 1939 with the British Expeditionary Force, he did make time first to get married to Violet, although he later became a widower.

Mr Evans saw action against the Germans in both Belgium and Holland as part of a Bren gun carrier team. Arriving on the packed beaches at Dunkirk, he waited three days to be evacuated and vividly recalled the period when interviewed some years ago.

He said: “The whole area was a mass of rubble, I remember the constant shellfire and the Stukas; they were just like birds dropping from the sky.

“I travelled across on one of the small boats, I climbed down, got on board and fell straight to sleep and woke up in Dover.”

After landing in back in Blighty, Mr Evans had a well-earned week’s leave before returning to his regiment. The British Army was hastily regrouping, as it was feared Hitler would attempt to invade the country at any time.

Sustaining a serious injury to his leg, Mr Evans was told he would never walk again but following a transfer to a top-secret base in Cumbria, he later made a full recovery. After the war he joined the police in Kent, retiring as a sergeant and moving to Leyburn in the Dales.

Mr Evans attended the 50th and 60th anniversaries of Operation Dynamo (the Dunkirk evacuation). The final parade for Dunkirk veterans took place at St Michael’s Church, Spennithorne in 2010. President of the British Legion Leyburn branch, he celebrated his 100th birthday as guest of honour at the unveiling of L-Col Joe Jordan’s project for a lasting memorial at Catterick Garrison in December 2018. He read at the 2019 Remembrance Day parade at Leyburn and was acutely disappointed that many VE Day celebrations were cancelled last year.

In recent years Mr Evans had been a popular resident at Sycamore Hall in Bainbridge but recently had moved back to his home on Leyburn, where he died peacefully on Thursday July 15. His funeral will take place on Monday, August 2, with a private family service at Darlington Crematorium. This is followed by a service of celebration at 1pm, fittingly at St Michael’s Church, Spennithorne