On the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 Doug got separated from the regiment and because his boots were falling apart was making slow progress. Luckily he befriended a horse, which although unable to hold his weight, did carry Doug’s pack. Thus he arrived at La Panne leading a horse. Eventually Doug arrived back in England aboard HMS Express.
In 1941, Doug went with the regiment to Iraq, and then later on, to the main theatre of operations in the Western Desert. By June 1942 Doug was in the newly formed 470 Battery and during the confusion of the withdrawal to the Alamein Line, the convoy in which he was travelling became surrounded by the enemy. Doug was taken prisoner and spent 6 months at a camp west of Benghazi in Libya before being shipped to Italy. When the Italians surrendered, he was sent to a German PoW camp in Muhlberg, Saxony where he spent the rest of the war.