Celebrating his 100th birthday last year in 2019, Albert Johnson is believed to be one of the last few veterans alive who survived the Dunkirk evacuation. Johnson was conscripted in 1938 at the age of 19 and was later retrieved for military service the following year. 

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“You aren’t scared when you’re 19 years old, we just took it in our stride,”

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Soon after, Johnson completed his military training and ended up being assigned to the 6th Battalion in France. He was only 21 years old when the Germans began their invasion of Belgium in 1940 and in an effort to help, was sent into Belgium to meet the enemy. However, Johnson and the Allies were cut off and forced to retreat back to Dunkirk.

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"We reached the last canal before Dunkirk and were there for five days being constantly attacked by the German planes and shells,"

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Johnson and the rest of the allies continued their march to Dunkirk until arriving at the beaches, digging in to fortify their position.

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"We passed a soldier guarding a stack of bully beef as I passed I bent down and grabbed one. I was so hungry and thirsty…"

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"We got to the beach and were told to dig in. The only tool I had to dig with was my bayonet."

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That night after the Allies had dug their trenches they were told to wade out chest high into the water in order to be evacuated, only to be told that there were no more boats coming and returning dripping wet to their trenches.

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The next morning, Johnson awoke to find that his trench had been caved in after a bombing attack and he and a fellow soldier had to scramble to safety while under heavy artillery fire.

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Johnson and his fellow soldiers only just managed to successfully board and leave Dunkirk on the last day of evacuations by boarding a destroyer ship named HMS Venomous.

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"We all ran up the jetty, threw our rifles onto the ship and jumped on board. I climbed up to the crow's nest and on the way across the channel the ship's pom-poms [anti-aircraft gun] opened fire and nearly deafened and blinded me,"

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Though Johnson managed to escape Dunkirk, his war was far from over.

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Johnson's battalion was later deployed in Asia after Japan had entered the war. The battalion had to endure through horrendous living and fighting conditions, dealing with poor sanitation, disease and the overwhelming threat of the Japanese soldiers.

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“I had Malaria five times and dysentery a number of times. Sometimes they would send you back in before you were ready and you’d get sick again,"

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After four years Johnson's battalion was sent back to India and in 1945 the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped, ending the war.

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Arriving back in England, Johnson worked on a farm for a few years where he met his wife, Mary, before starting a business as a coal merchant and settling down in Australia.