The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  Forty men here, 100 there, helped clear the piers, but most of the French weren’t in Dunkirk at all. They were still on the perimeter, holding back General von Kuechler’s “systematic attack.” To the east the 12th Division fought all day to keep the Germans out of Bray-Dunes. Toward evening General Janssen was killed by a bomb, but his men fought on. Southeast, flooding held the enemy at Ghyvelde. In the center, Colonel Menon’s 137th Infantry Regiment clung to Teteghem. Southwest at Spycker, two enterprising naval lieutenants commanded three 155 mm. guns, blocking the road for hours. All the way west, the 68th Division continued to hold General von Hubicki’s panzers. A French observer in the church tower at Mardyck had an uncanny knack of catching the slightest German movement.

  Corporal Hans Waitzbauer, radio operator of the 2nd Battery, 102nd Artillery Regiment, was exasperated. The battery had been promised Wiener schnitzel for lunch, but now here they were, pinned down by that sharp-eyed fellow in the church tower.

  Waitzbauer, a good Viennese, wasn’t about to give up his Wiener schnitzel that easily. With Lieutenant Gertung’s permission, he darted back, leaping from ditch to ditch, to the company kitchen. Then, with his pot of veal in both hands, a bottle of red wine in his trouser pocket, and half a loaf of white bread in each of his jacket pockets, he scurried back again. Shells and machine-gun bullets nipped at his heels all the way, but he made it safely and distributed his treasures to the battery. Lieutenant Gertung’s only comment was, “You were lucky.”

  With Kuechler’s men pinned down in the east and west, the key to the advance was clearly Bergues, the old medieval town that anchored the center of the French line. If it could be taken, two good roads ran directly north to Dunkirk, just five miles to the north.

  But how to take it? The town was circled by thick walls and a moat designed by the great military engineer Vauban. For a defense conceived in the seventeenth century, it was amazingly effective in the 20th. A garrison of 1,000 troops was well dug in, and they were supported by strong artillery plus naval guns at Dunkirk. The RAF Bomber Command gave help from the air.

  Kuechler had been trying to take the place for two days, and it was still a stand-off. On the afternoon of June 2 it was decided to try a coordinated attack using Stukas and specially trained shock troops drawn from the 18th Regiment of Engineers.

  At 3:00 p.m. the Stukas attacked, concentrating on a section of the wall that seemed weaker than the rest. Nearby the engineers crouched with flame-throwers and assault ladders. At 3:15 the bombers let up, and the men stormed the wall, led by their commander Lieutenant Voigt. Dazed by the Stukas, the garrison surrendered almost immediately.

  Bergues taken, the Germans pressed on north toward Dunkirk, capturing Fort Vallières at dusk. They were now only three miles from the port, but at this point French General Fagalde scraped together every available man for a counterattack. It was a costly effort, but he managed to stop the German advance. Toward midnight the weary poilus began disengaging and working their way to the harbor, where they hoped the rescue fleet was still waiting.

  Kuechler did not press them. In keeping with his orders for the “systematic attack,” he took no unnecessary risks, and the Germans did not usually fight at night anyhow. Besides, there was a feeling in the air that the campaign was really over. Outside captured Bergues, one unit of the 18th Division sat in the garden of a cottage “singing old folk-songs, soldier-songs, songs of love and home.” General Haider spent a good part of the day distributing Iron Crosses to deserving staff officers.

  More than ever, all eyes were on the south. To the Luftwaffe, Dunkirk was now a finished story; it would be staging its first big raid on Paris tomorrow, June 3. Flying Officer B. J. Wicks, a Hurricane pilot shot down and working his way to the coast disguised as a Belgian peasant, noticed long columns of German troops—all heading south toward the Somme.

  It was about 2:30 a.m. on the 3rd when the first of the French defenders, relieved from the counterattack, began filing onto the mole. Most of the ships had now gone back to Dover, but a few were still there. Sub-Lieutenant Wake struggled to keep order. He might lack rank, but he did have an unusual piece of equipment— a hunting horn.

  It didn’t do much good. The French seemed to know a thousand ways to slow down the embarkation. They tried to bring all their gear, their personal possessions, even their dogs. Many of them had inner tubes around their necks—improvised life preservers—and this bulky addition slowed them down even more. They invariably tried to crowd aboard the first boat they came to, rather than space themselves out over the full length of the mole. They insisted on keeping their units intact, never seemed to realize that they could be sorted out later in England. Right now the important thing was to get going before daylight.

  Wake and his handful of seamen did their best, but his schoolboy French never rose to the occasion. What he really needed was someone like Clouston’s assistant Michael Solomon, who was fluent in the language and could deal with the French officers. Lacking that, neither shouts of “Allez vite” nor blasts on the hunting horn could help. It was almost symbolic when some “damned Frenchman” (Wake’s words) finally stepped on the horn and put it out of commission for good.

  As it grew light, Admiral Wake-Walker—still patrolling in MA/SB 10—ordered all remaining ships to leave. The minesweeper Speedwell cast off; in an hour alongside the mole she had taken aboard only 300 French soldiers. Sub-Lieutenant Wake caught a small French fishing smack, and transferred to a large Channel steamer outside the harbor. The skoot Hilda lingered long enough for a final check of the beach at Malo—nobody there.

  At 3:10, as the last ships pulled out, three new vessels slipped in. These were block ships, to be sunk at the harbor entrance under the direction of Captain E. Dangerfield. The hope was, of course, to deny the Germans future use of the port. But nothing seemed to go right this frustrating night. When the block ships were scuttled, the current caught one of them and turned it parallel to the Channel, leaving plenty of room to enter and leave.

  “A most disheartening night,” noted Admiral Wake-Walker on his return to Dover in the morning. He had hoped to lift over 37,000 men, actually got off only 24,000. At least 25,000 French—some said 40,000—were left behind. Wake-Walker tended to blame the French themselves for not providing their own berthing parties, but the British were the people used to running the mole. On May 31 Captain Tennant had, at Admiral Abrial’s request, taken charge of both the British and French embarkation. It was asking a lot now to expect the French to take over on the spur of the moment.

  To General Weygand sitting in Paris, it was a familiar story. Once again “perfidious Albion” was walking out, leaving the French to shift for themselves. Even before the night’s misadventures, he fired oft” a telegram to the French military attaché in London, urging that the evacuation continue another night to embark the 25,000 French troops who were holding off the Germans. “Emphasize that the solidarity of the two armies demands that the French rearguard be not sacrificed.”

  Winston Churchill needed little convincing. He wired Weygand and Reynaud:

  We are coming back for your men tonight. Please ensure that all facilities are used promptly. For three hours last night many ships waited idly at great risk and danger.

  In Dover at 10:09 on the morning of June 3, Admiral Ramsay signaled his command that their work was not over after all:

  I hoped and believed that last night would see us through, but the French who were covering the retirement of the British rearguard had to repel a strong German attack and so were unable to send their troops to the pier in time to be embarked. We cannot leave our Allies in the lurch, and I call on all officers and men detailed for further evacuation tonight to let the world see that we never let down our Ally. …

  On the destroyer Malcolm the morning had begun on a high note. She was just back from her seventh trip to Dunkirk, and was still in one piece. The last of the BEF had been evacuated, and everyone assumed that the operation was over. Breakfa
st in the ward room was a merry affair.

  Lieutenant Mellis fell on his bunk hoping to catch up on his sleep. He was so tired he didn’t even take his clothes off. Several hours later he was awakened by the sound of men’s feet on the deck overhead. He learned that the crew was assembling for an important announcement by Captain Halsey, who had just returned from Ramsay’s headquarters. Halsey came quickly to the point: “The last of the BEF was able to come off because the French took over the perimeter last night. Now the French have asked us to take them off. We can’t do anything else, can we?”

  No. But it was still a shock. For Mellis, it was the worst moment of the whole show. To enjoy that delicious feeling of relief and relaxation—and then to have it all snatched away—was almost more than he could stand. The ward room had planned a festive mess that evening, and decided to dress festively anyhow. When the Malcolm sailed on her eighth trip to Dunkirk at 9:08 p.m., June 3, her officers were wearing their bow ties and monkey jackets.

  14

  The Last Night

  “IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN any Germans, here they are.” The announcement sounded strangely calm and detached to Edmond Perron, a minor Dunkirk official who had fled the blazing city with his family. The Perrons had found shelter on the farm of M. Wasel at Cappelle-la-Grande, a couple of miles to the south. As the fighting surged toward them, the Wasels and their guests retired to the stable for added protection. Now it was 3:00 p.m., June 3, and M. Wasel was peeking through the stable door and issuing bulletins on what he saw.

  M. Perron peered out, too. Men in green uniforms covered the plain to the south—running … lying down … getting up … crouching … always advancing. But they did not come to the Wasel farm. Reaching its edge, they veered to the left to get around a water-filled ditch, then continued north toward Dunkirk.

  General Lieutenant Christian Hansen’s X Corps was closing in from the south. By 3:30 the 61st Division had passed the Wasel farm and occupied Cappelle itself. By evening the 18th Division, advancing from the southeast, had Fort Louis, an ancient landmark about a mile south of the port. Stukas helped reduce another little fort two miles to the east.

  The French were also crumbling farther east. Colonel Menon’s 37th Infantry were finally overwhelmed at Teteghem. By this time his 1st Battalion was down to 50 men. One machine gunner was working two guns, feeding them with scraps of ammunition picked up on the ground. Held up the better part of two days, the battered victors joined the other German units now converging on the port.

  General Fagalde threw in everything he had left: the last of the 32nd Division … the coastal defense troops of the Secteur Fortifié des Flandres … the remains of the 21st Division Training Centre … his own Gardes Mobiles. Somehow he stopped them, although machine-gun bullets were now clipping the trees of suburban Rosendaël.

  The end seemed very near to Sergeant Bill Knight of the Royal Engineers, who had somehow missed getting away with the last of the BEF. Now he was holed up in a cellar in Rosendaël with four other men from his unit. They had a truck, arms, plenty of food, but the German firing was so heavy that Knight felt they could never get to the harbor, even assuming the evacuation was still on.

  The little party was pretty much resigned to surrender when two Belgian civilians, who had also taken cover in the cellar, began talking about slipping through the lines to their farms near the village of Spycker. Listening to them, an idea suddenly occurred to Knight: they might be cut off from the harbor, but why not go the other way? Why not slip through the encircling German Army and rejoin the Allies on the Somme?

  A deal was quickly struck. Knight would give the Belgians transportation, if they would show him the little lanes and cow paths that might get them through the enemy lines unnoticed. Knight felt sure that the Germans were sticking to the main roads, and once through the cordon, it wouldn’t be too hard to reach the Somme.

  They set off at dusk, June 3, bouncing along the back streets that led southwest out of town. All night they continued driving, guided by the Belgians and by a road map picked up at a garage they passed.

  Dawn on the 4th found them near Spycker. Here they dropped the two Belgians, and after a few final instructions continued heading southwest. They still used back roads, and when even these seemed dangerous, they lay low for a while in a field. Toward evening they had a lucky break. A German convoy appeared along the road, made up entirely of captured vehicles. They fell in behind, becoming the tail end of the convoy.

  They made 20 to 25 miles this way, with only one narrow escape. A German motorcycle was escorting the convoy, and at one point it dropped back to make sure that none of the trucks were missing. Feeling that it would be just as jarring to find one truck too many, Knight slowed down, dropping far enough behind the convoy to appear to be no part of it. When the motorcycle returned to its regular position up front, Knight closed up again.

  Wednesday, June 5, and the truck at last reached the Somme at Ailly. Here the British party had another break: a bridge still stood intact. It was not a highway bridge—just a cattle crossing—but it would do. Knight barreled across it into Allied lines.

  No one else at Dunkirk was that enterprising. One and all believed that June 3 would be the last night, and at Bastion 32 the mood was heavy with gloom. There was no more fresh water; the medics had run out of bandages; communications were failing. “Enemy is reaching the outskirts,” ran Abrial’s last message, sent at 3:25 p.m. “I am having the codes burned, except for the M Code.”

  At 4:00 p.m. Admiral Ramsay’s rescue fleet started out again. As before, the plan called for the big ships—the destroyers, the Channel steamers, the largest paddlers—to concentrate on the eastern mole. But this time the naval berthing party would be greatly strengthened. Commander Herbert James Buchanan would be in charge; four officers, fifty seamen, and several signalmen would be on hand. Four French officers were added to provide better communication. With luck, Ramsay hoped that 14,000 troops would be lifted off the mole between 10:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m.

  The minesweepers, skoots, and smaller paddle steamers would concentrate on the west pier, a shorter jetty just across from the mole, where crowds of French soldiers had waited in vain the previous night. This smaller flotilla should be able to take off another 5,000 men. The little ships—there were still scores of launches, motorboats, and small craft about—would again probe deep into the harbor where the larger vessels couldn’t go. They would ferry the troops they found to the gunboat Locust, waiting just outside the port.

  The ever-growing fleet of French trawlers and fishing smacks would take care of the Quai Félix Faure, cover the outer mole all the way west, and make a final check of Malo beach. These French boats were late arrivals, but now seemed to be everywhere.

  All understood that this really would be the last night, and Ramsay tried to make sure of it with a strongly worded telegram to the Admiralty:

  After nine days of operations of a nature unprecedented in naval warfare, which followed on two weeks of intense strain, commanding officers, officers, and ships’ companies are at the end of their tether. … If, therefore, evacuation has to be continued after tonight, I would emphasize in the strongest possible manner that fresh forces should be used for these operations, and any consequent delay in their execution should be accepted.

  It was true, but hard to tell from the jaunty procession of vessels that once again streamed across the Channel. The destroyer Whitshed pulled out, her harmonica band playing on the foredeck. The cabin cruiser Mermaiden was manned by a sub-lieutenant, a stoker, an RAF gunner on leave, and a white-haired old gentleman who normally helped take care of Horatio Nelson’s flagship Victory in Portsmouth. The motor launch Marlborough had lost her two solicitors—they only had the weekend off—but she boasted two equally dapper replacements: a retired colonel and an invalided army officer, said to be a crack shot with a Lewis gun.

  The destroyer Malcolm looked especially dashing, with her officers dressed in their monkey jackets for the festiv
e evening that never came off. The tug Sun IV, towing fourteen launches, was still skippered by Mr. Alexander, president of the tugboat company. The MTB 102, again carrying Admiral Wake-Walker, now sported a real admiral’s flag—made from a red-striped dish cloth.

  Wake-Walker arrived off the eastern mole at 10:00 p.m. and was relieved to find that tonight plenty of French troops were waiting. But once again the wind and the tide were against him, and he couldn’t get alongside. When the Whitshed appeared at 10:20 with Commander Buchanan’s berthing party, she had no better luck. The other ships too were unable to land, and a huge traffic jam built up at the entrance to the harbor.

  Nearly an hour passed before Wake-Walker managed to get some lines ashore, and the berthing party was able to move into action. By 11:00 loading operations were under way, but a whole hour had been lost. What had been planned for four hours would have to be done in three.

  Fortunately the Luftwaffe had turned its attention to Paris, and there was little shelling tonight. Many of the guns too had gone south, and Kuechler’s advance was so close that his artillery were leery of hitting their own infantry. On the mole the British berthing party could hear machine-gun fire in the town itself. “Vite, vite,” a sailor shouted as the poilus tumbled aboard the Malcolm, “Vite, God damn it, VITE!”

  Admiral Taylor’s flotilla of small craft headed deeper into the harbor, to the Quai Félix Faure. The Admiral himself had gone ahead in the War Department’s fast boat Marlborough to organize the loading. He understood there would be thousands of French waiting, but when he arrived, he found the quay deserted. Finally 300 to 400 French marines turned up and announced there was nobody else.