Behaviour of this kind is more redolent of German Einsatzgruppen than British line infantry, and might rightly be described as an atrocity. Yet it was not unusual. Signaller S.L. Rhodda, who never saw a single German, records an incident as his column passed a straggle of refugees. After a pigeon fluttered suspiciously from a male civilian, he was set upon by other refugees, after which:
A couple of Redcaps drove up and whisked him off. About five minutes later, as we moved off, we heard a small burst of rifle fire. An officer of the Redcaps then came along the column warning us to watch out for spies releasing pigeons carrying information to the Germans.
The experience of Anthony Rhodes, a regular lieutenant with the Royal Engineers, included the shooting of a ‘bogus doctor’, supposedly dropped by parachute and ‘carrying a small leather case which was really a sub-machine-gun’. The interrogation of no fewer than 100 suspected spies by a lone Field Security Police officer in a single day is graphically described in his account Sword of Bone, reproduced in full as Appendix One. Here it must suffice to record a conversation between a fellow subaltern and the divisional provost officer, described as ‘a Guards officer of the Teutonic variety’ and ‘ideally suited to his work’:
‘Do you really shoot spies?’ asked Stimpson, assuming a proper air of awe.
‘Of course,’ said the provost officer.
‘And do you do it entirely on your own? I mean the trial and that sort of thing.’
‘Of course.’
‘But I suppose you take very good care that they really are spies, don’t you? I mean – it’s a sort of absolute power of attorney, isn’t it?’
‘It’s absolute, all right,’ he said, grinning.
There is anecdotal evidence that some BEF units were given orders to take no prisoners save for interrogation. Indeed at Arras orders were even issued to shoot stray dogs, following reports that they were being used to convey messages. Several books about the campaign published later in 1940, such as those by James Hodson, Douglas Williams and Bernard Gray, make a virtue of what amount to war crimes, with frequent references to supposed spies ‘shot there and then’, ‘shot right away’ and ‘summarily dealt with’. The unpalatable conclusion is that British units were uniformly trigger-happy around alleged spies, and that the numbers of innocent people executed in France, Belgium and elsewhere probably ran into the low thousands. There is a sad irony in this grim statistic, given that the death of 5,000 civilians as the Kaiser’s army marched through Belgium in 1914 led to the demonisation of the Hun as a barbaric, baby-spitting horde for the better part of half a century.
Subsequent reports even had the mythical fifth column operating within the Dunkirk perimeter. The War Diary of the Royal Warwickshires records on 29 May, en route to Bray Dunes:
On march passed thousands of lorries and guns lining the roadside, all abandoned and put out of action … Some were smouldering having been set alight, it is thought, by Fifth Columnists, because they lit up the countryside, and on a clear night made the marching personnel an excellent target from the air.
Similar tales from the beaches smack of pure invention, for example this extract from The Epic of Dunkirk, a work of patriotic eyewash written by E. Keble Chatterton:
Waiting on Dunkirk beach for a boat was a party of 25 French soldiers, to whom a civilian approached and began making a pleasant conversation. Having ingratiated himself and aroused no suspicion, suddenly he whipped out a ‘Tommy’ gun and began filling the Frenchmen with lead. All except four. These were quick enough on the uptake to use the same tactics and shoot life out of him.
Elsewhere Chatterton offers another equally tall story, again involving the favoured weapon of the gangster:
You never knew friend from foe in those dizzy days. One small British steamer had taken on board a full complement of passengers, principally wounded French troops, but among these were a dozen strangers who mingled with the crowd and seemed ordinary enough. Actually they were Germans disguised in French uniforms. Barely had the ship cleared the roadstead and gained the open sea than this bunch of gangsters produced twelve automatic pistols, aimed at the bridge and shot the captain … Simultaneously they shot the signaller, who showed himself a brave and resourceful sailor. Dragging himself painfully to the speaking tube, he whispered below to where seven of the crew happened to be … The sound of heavy treads indicated that seven men were racing to their shipmates’ assistance. Their fury and indignation at such treachery composed one dominating passion and they killed the Nazis forthwith. Meanwhile the ship carried on towards England.
Back in Britain, the evacuation was not announced officially until the evening of 30 May, leading to a run of lurid rumours in the vicinity of ports such as Dover. Stokers were said to have run amok, only to be hauled from their engine rooms laced into straitjackets. A sailor in the know had presented his wife with a revolver and two rounds of ammunition, while it was whispered darkly that other women were carrying poison capsules, that one old soldier had already committed suicide, and that vast communal graves were being prepared. Oblivious to these dangers, another unknown (but evidently more life-affirming) rumour drew prostitutes to Dover from all over the country, keeping the constabulary fully occupied.
Central to the myth of the BEF’s glorious deliverance from Dunkirk are reports of sky-high morale. Apocryphal stories of British units drilling on the streets and beaches, as though on a parade ground, are legion. For example:
Not many regiments of the BEF marched along the Mole at Dunkirk in threes … But 30 or 40 men of the Black Watch did it on June 1st. And they raised their voices in the din, and they sang … And they added in a shout, being British and given to irony, ‘Up the pole!’
James Hodson tells of the stoic return of men of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment:
One lad carried his heavy [Boys] anti-tank rifle to Halifax, delivered it to the Quartermaster saying, ‘here it is, and I’d like a receipt for it.’ That was typical of ‘the Dukes’ to the end, Yorkshire and humorous and tough.
Press and radio reports described the troops as little more than tired and dishevelled. At an unidentified port on the south coast, a Daily Telegraph correspondent watched as men ‘from a famous Guards regiment’ disembarked:
They looked clean and smart, many had shaved, some had even found time to polish their boots. They carried their heads high and it was plain that events of the past week had in no way diminished their fighting spirit.
Writing in 1959, Dunkirk veteran David Divine had this to say about tales of chaos on the beaches:
One of the minor but persistent myths of Dunkirk makes serious charges as to the morale of the BEF. In the early stages of the evacuation … there was unquestionably disorder and indiscipline on the beaches. Boats were rushed, and on occasion sunk under the weight of men or overturned in the surf. This was the period of the ‘useless mouths’ and of the base troops, and of small units that had been ordered to get back to Dunkirk under their own steam … But this was a temporary phase and at most it led only to local difficulties. The morale of the fighting army when it reached the beaches and the Mole matched the very highest traditions of the Service – it did more, it added to them.
However, Divine surely overstates his case. On the London–Dover railway line one police inspector noted with alarm the ‘whirling flurry of sparks’ as demoralised men pitched their rifles from carriage windows. Clearly none had heard the rumour that pay would be docked for items of equipment left in France. In Kent several units of the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) were able to arm themselves with rifles and even Bren guns abandoned on the quays, together with substantial amounts of ammunition. When Anthony Eden addressed troops at Aldershot on 2 June he was hooted and jeered. Even by 30 May, Mass Observers were noting that troops lately back from Dunkirk were ‘talking freely about their experiences, particularly in pubs’ and that the effect of this was ‘not good’.
Indeed not. Writing in his diary on 18
June, London schoolboy Colin Perry recorded:
Today I heard a story from one of the lads in the gallant BEF. His officers – mainly, I take it, who had bought their commissions in peacetime – deserted their men when their ship was sunk by German dive-bombers. Terrible! Our army has something radically wrong with its organisation, whereas our navy and air force are superb.
Cecil King, a director of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial, records a meeting with Thomas Horabin, the Liberal MP for North Cornwall, on 21 June. According to Horabin, during a secret parliamentary session:
Several people … referred to stories of officers running away at Dunkirk. It does appear that there were a lot of cases of officers who pushed in front of their men, or who deserted their men in order to get an earlier boat home.
Later King was told by Eric Fraser, Director of Statistics at the War Office, that
The Dunkirk episode was far worse than was ever realised in Fleet Street. The men on getting back to England were so demoralised they threw their rifles and equipment out of railway-carriage windows. Some sent for their wives with their civilian clothes, changed into these, and walked home.
Conversely, many returning troops quickly came to appreciate – and exploit – their status as Dunkirk veterans. Peter Hadley noted:
In the circumstances it was hardly surprising that a large number of soldiers suddenly became aware that they were heroes, and many heads were sadly turned by the enthusiasm of the welcome prepared. The rejoicing which sprang from relief at the miraculous escape was misconstrued as an expression of congratulation upon victory; and many who only a few hours before had succumbed to panic or who felt the chill of fear now wrote the letters ‘BEF’ on their tin hats and shoulder straps, and stepped forth straightaway in the guise of heroes, accepting unquestioningly the homage paid to them by an adoring public, whether it took the form of admiring glances or manifested itself more practically in the shape of free drinks.
Montgomery, who quickly banned all such unofficial insignia, voiced much the same sentiment in his Memoirs:
The fact that the BEF had escaped through Dunkirk was considered by many to be a great victory for British arms. I remember the disgust of many like myself when we saw British soldiers walking about in London and elsewhere with a coloured embroidered flash on their sleeve with the title ‘Dunkirk.’ They thought they were heroes, and the civilian public thought so too. It was not understood that the British Army had suffered a crushing defeat at Dunkirk and that our island home was now in grave danger. There was no sense of urgency.
The Dunkirk evacuation is often remembered as the triumph of the legendary Little Ships, an impression reinforced by J.B. Priestley’s celebrated BBC news postcript broadcast on 5 June. Several books published later in 1940 stoked this particular myth, with stirring tales of ‘heroes in jerseys and sweaters and old rubber boots’ whose rag-tag flotilla ‘went in, a line of cheeky arrogant little boats to sit like wrens on the edge of the battlefield’. In truth the contribution made by the armada of small vessels was not especially significant in terms of numbers: two-thirds of the men evacuated during Operation Dynamo were lifted from the Mole, and just 26,000 (8 per cent of the total) by the Little Ships from the beaches. However, the smaller vessels did give sterling assistance in carrying vital rations and ammunition ashore, and provided British propaganda agencies with solid gold copy.
A darker aspect of the legend of Dunkirk remained unexamined until forty years later, and the relevant official files at the PRO remain sealed. Crews aboard several boats which had already crossed the Channel to France displayed a marked reluctance to return, and on some Navy vessels the situation bordered on mutiny. Problems began as early as 28 May, when the steamer Canterbury refused to sail, after which a naval party was put aboard to stiffen the resolve of the crew. The following day St Seiriol and Ngaroma left port only after an armed guard was placed on each vessel, while the tug Contest was deliberately run aground by her crew. Once the boat had been refloated, the engineer still refused to cross to Dunkirk, claiming that his filters would become blocked by sand. On the evening of 1 June three passenger steamers, Malines, Tynewald and Ben-My-Chree refused to sail, and appeared to be acting in concert. Indeed the master of the Malines, George Mallory, defied orders by leaving Folkestone and returning to his home port, Southampton. He later explained:
Seven of our consorts were sunk in the vicinity and the weakening morale of my crew was badly shaken. The wireless operator, purser, three engineers and several other hands were already in a state of nervous debility and unfit for duty, while many of the crew were not to be depended upon in an emergency. I considered that the odds against a successful prosecution of another voyage were too enormous and the outcome too unprofitable to risk the ship.
Several naval ships also succumbed to collapses in morale. The destroyer Verity was ordered to remain in Dover harbour after twelve men jumped ship on 30 May, while no fewer than 28 on board the minesweeper Hebe had succumbed to fits, convulsions and panic attacks by 1 June.
More infamous was the behaviour of several RNLI crews. On arriving at Dover the coxswain of the Hythe boat, ‘Buller’ Griggs, refused to accept instructions to run his boat ashore at Dunkirk, take on troops, and float free at high tide. Griggs argued that his boat was too heavy, and sought written assurances about pensions in the event of his crew being killed. When these were refused, Griggs persuaded his colleagues from Walmer and Dungeness not to put to sea. In these circumstances, the Navy had no option but to commandeer the entire RNLI fleet, although to their great credit the boats at Margate and Ramsgate had already sailed with their own crews. Three weeks later both Griggs and his brother, the boat’s mechanic, were dismissed from the service, after an RNLI inquiry found that ‘failure to perform their duty at a time of great national emergency’ reflected discredit on the lifeboat service ‘and can in no way be excused’.
Just as the role of the Little Ships was less crucial than legend insists, the alleged absence of the Royal Air Force in the skies above Dunkirk is also a distortion. Between 10 May and the fall of France the RAF lost 959 aircraft, 453 of them precious fighters. During the nine days of Operation Dynamo alone the RAF lost 145 machines, 99 of them from Fighter Command, including 42 Spitfires. Churchill claimed that four times as many Luftwaffe machines were destroyed during the same period, although actual German losses totalled 132. This net loss for the RAF is partly explicable by the fact that British army and navy gunners blazed indiscriminately at anything which flew overhead. As one man on the Thames paddle wheeler Golden Eagle admitted:
Every time a Hurricane or Spitfire came low over the beach we opened fire because we had heard some had been captured by the Germans and were firing on the squaddies.
Despite the fact that the French prime minister, Paul Reynaud, had warned Churchill that the battle was lost as early as 16 May, poor strategy continued to dog the BEF during and after the Dunkirk evacuation. Historians remain divided on the role of the miracle of Dunkirk played by the stonewall defence of Calais, 25 miles to the west. The orthodox view was spelt out by Keble Chatterton in The Epic of Dunkirk, published in 1940:
A new and more wonderful story was to be written on stones already greyed by time’s events. Nearly six centuries ago Calais was captured by the bravery of English soldiers. In May 1940 it was defended by English warriors, who bled and died with a self-sacrifice that would have been the admiration of their medieval ancestors … Let it be appreciated that on this Calais effort depended the possibility of Dunkirk’s evacuation: any withdrawal of the beleaguered BEF a few miles further up the coast, pivoted on what could be accomplished in that gateway to France through which unthinking tourists used to make for Paris … Not one man around Calais had perished in vain.
A good deal of bad poetry about Calais was published in The Times, and by 1941 the defence of the port had been recast as a pivotal rearguard action which held the Germans back from Dunkirk for two vital days. According to a popular a
ccount written by Erik Linklater in 1941:
The Fury of the death struggle engaged, during four vital days, the whole strength of at least two Panzer divisions that might otherwise have cut our retreating army’s road to the sea … The scythe-like sweep of the German divisions stopped with a jerk at Calais. The tip of the scythe had met a stone.
While the tremendous bravery of the 3,000 strong Territorial garrison at Calais is beyond question, the plain fact is that their sacrifice was useless. Although reinforced by 30 Brigade, together with a battalion of 48 tanks, these fresh troops were landed with only half their stores and vehicles, and the enlarged force was still badly overstretched. Most of the tanks were quickly squandered in piecemeal engagements with German armour, while others were destroyed prematurely to prevent them falling into enemy hands. On the evening of 24 May the commander of the British garrison, Brigadier Claude Nicholson, received an order from the War Office to stay put ‘for the sake of Allied Solidarity’, and hold on to a harbour ‘being at present of no importance to BEF’. Enraged by the ‘defeatist’ and ‘lukewarm’ tone of the order as drafted, Churchill sent one of his own devising on the afternoon of 25 May:
Myths & Legends of the Second World War Page 7