F.S.P.

I will not be killed, I will not be killed I have
things to do I will not be killed like this I will
not be killed like this . . .

To tie in with the release of DUNKIRK on 21st July and to accompany the film tie-in which “explores the harrowing true stories that inspired the epic action thriller”, here is a true account by one of the heroic volunteers who came to the rescue, first published just two years after the incredible evacuation.

Arthur Gwynn-Browne volunteered in 1939, aged 35. Less than six months later, after basic training, his unit, the F.S.P. (Field Security Personnel), was in France. Caught up in the columns of soldiers and refugees fleeing to the coast, Gwynn-Browne endured shelling and aerial bombardment on the beach at Dunkirk before finally scrambling aboard a rescue craft, returning to the surreal calm of a Britain itself under threat of invasion.

Absorbing, affecting, thrilling, often humorous, F.S.P. was the first on-the-ground account of the Dunkirk evacuation to be published, in 1942. Gwynn-Browne’s extraordinarily innovative style perfectly evokes the soldiers’ emotional slide through optimism, apprehension and utter fear to a bitter sense of defeat. The result is a stunningly authentic and involving record of a pivotal moment in the war.

Back in print after sixty years, F.S.P. is a remarkable rediscovery, unique in the literature of battle.