IT WAS the first annual dinner of the Oxford branch of the Dunkirk Veterans’ Association.

Members and their wives met at the Territorial Army Centre in Marston Road, Oxford, in 1962 to remember the Allied troops’ escape from France at the height of the Second World War.

Nearly 100 people attended. They were welcomed by the branch chairman, Major P C Harvey, and the secretary, Mr A G Phillips, a former Regimental Sergeant Major.

Among those present was the branch’s honorary chaplain, the Rev James Cocke, of Highfield, Headington, who, as the Oxford Mail has reported, is still in charge of the parish and is now the Church of England’s longest serving clergyman.

During the evening, the mayor of Oxford, Alderman Lionel Harrison, handed over the new branch standard to the association. It had three colours, representing the three fighting services.

Founded at Leeds in 1953, the association was one of the first ex-service organisations to be formed from personnel who served during the war.

Operation Dynamo was the code name given to the evacuation of the Allied armies from Dunkirk and neighbouring beaches between May 26 and June 4, 1940 – the celebrated ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’.

During that short period, 338,000 troops reached safety in England after being evacuated mainly in Royal and Merchant Navy ships, aided by Allied ships and a mixed fleet of little ships, from Dunkirk and from the beaches stretching 10 miles eastwards from the entrance to Dunkirk harbour.

Most of those saved subsequently took part in operations in various parts of the world and helped liberate Europe in 1944 and 1945.

The Dunkirk Veterans’ Association was formed to help members and their families in need and to foster a spirit of comradeship among those who had been evacuated. At its peak, it had more than 100 branches in Britain and others in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada and North America, with a total of 20,000 members worldwide.

However, as the veterans reached 80-plus, it was decided in 2000 to wind up the association “in good order and with goodwill before age and illness take further toll”.

Can we name any of the veterans in the picture above?