‘What I did was forbidden,’ says Hans. ‘I could have been court-martialled for that.’ Even so, when he rejoined the rest of the Staffel he came clean – he had to explain why he had been so long. He was forgiven, however; after all, he’d scored another victory. ‘I was euphoric,’ Hans explains. ‘I’d shot this aircraft down and then had landed beside him and saved him. If I’d stopped to think about it I’d have never done it. It was an instinctive thing.’
Nearly all the Luftwaffe’s fighters were now operating over Dunkirk and the Channel ports – even units from Luftflotte 3 such as I/JG 2. On the 25th, Siegfried Bethke had patrolled the front above Panzer Group Kleist and had had clear and beautiful views all the way to the Channel. ‘Saw England for the first time,’ he had noted. The next day, he was flying over Dunkirk and Calais and encountered Fighter Command Spitfires for the first time, from 19 Squadron. ‘Wild bunch,’ he jotted in his diary afterwards, ‘Wild firing again.’ However, during the dogfight he managed to hit one with the best bit of shooting he had ever done – he had barely opened fire when first a belch of white smoke, then black smoke had burst from the Spitfire and it fell from 9,000 feet. Afterwards, he and the rest of the Staffel had been forced to land at a forward base to refuel. JG 2 were far from alone in operating at the limit of their range.
Siegfried now had three aerial victories, although that night as he wrote up his diary by the dim lamp by his bed, he chided himself for not having six or seven to his name. Seven letters from home reached him that day, but most were now quite old. Even his confirmed kill and the news that he had been awarded the Iron Cross Second Class could not shake his anxieties over what he believed was his lack of marksmanship. And he was getting tired, too; most days they were flying three, even four combat sorties, often for two hours at a time, and then becoming embroiled in heavy engagements. It was exhausting.
War was exhausting, whether one was a pilot, soldier, sailor or politician. There were some exceptions, of course. Hitler insisted on getting plenty of sleep; so too did Göring, even when his Luftwaffe was flying a maximum-effort operation. But the leaders of Britain, as they faced one of the biggest crises – if not the biggest – the country had ever known, could not relax for a moment. ‘The blackest day of all,’ Chamberlain had written in his diary on the night of the 26th. Monday the 27th was to be blacker, however. Halt order or no halt order, the future of the BEF looked horribly grim at dawn and even worse by nightfall. During times of particular strain, Churchill liked to recall quotations that matched his mood. He had asked one of his secretaries to find a line from George Borrow’s ‘Prayer for England at Gibraltar’, and that morning was given it: ‘Fear not the result, for either shall thy end be majestic and an enviable one, or God shall perpetuate thy reign upon the waters.’ He was going to need that kind of stoic resolve during the days to come.
Yet if the fate of the British army rested in the besieged port of Dunkirk, the fate of Britain would most likely be determined within the buildings of Whitehall and the outcome of the split between Churchill and Lord Halifax. Much depended on Chamberlain, whose influence was still considerable. Should Chamberlain emphatically side with Halifax, Churchill would find it difficult to oppose both.
Already Chamberlain was a sick man, although the cancer that was taking hold of him had not yet been diagnosed. Nevertheless, he had been tireless since stepping down as Prime Minister; not for one moment had he shirked his new responsibilities. This was in large part due to his intense sense of public duty, but Churchill had also played his role, making it clear how much he depended upon Chamberlain and acting towards him with extreme graciousness.
The first War Cabinet that day was at 11.30 a.m. at Downing Street. To begin with reports were read out from France, which was followed by a discussion about what to tell the Dominions; it was well known that the Australian High Commissioner, for example, was a defeatist. Things were also still bleak in Norway. Not only had the British suffered a humiliating defeat in Central Norway, but it now seemed as though they would have to evacuate Narvik, which had been captured by a combined Anglo-French-Polish force two days before; it had been the only land success during the entire campaign, but, it now seemed, all for nought. Then Chamberlain gave an appraisal of the Chiefs of Staffs’ ‘A Certain Eventuality’, pointing out that much depended on the United States. ‘This was perhaps not an unjustifiable assumption,’ he said, ‘but we might not obtain this support in the immediate future.’ This, as Churchill well knew, was true enough. The Prime Minister did, however, know that the aide-memoire was being discussed, questioning Group Captain Tommy Elmhirst’s figures for Luftwaffe strength. The Vice-Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Richard Pierse, had been asked to produce new, more accurate figures, which he now presented. These showed a ratio of 2.5:1 in favour of the Germans, rather than 4:1, as in the aide-memoire. It still meant British airmen would have to shoot down three German aircraft for every one of their own that was destroyed. Halifax said little at this time. The mood in the Cabinet Room that morning was gloomy, to put it mildly.
The War Cabinet met again at 4.30 p.m. and this time it began with Halifax reading out his draft letter to Mussolini. Churchill then said he thought it would be better for Roosevelt to approach Italy rather than the British with the French. He suggested that, should France collapse, Germany might well give her good terms but she would have to be governed by men acceptable to the Germans. In other words, France would effectively become pro-German and anti-British. Chamberlain agreed, although he was still largely with Halifax and said that until France collapsed then Britain should go along with the approach to Mussolini so as not to let them down completely.
What Chamberlain was saying, Churchill pointed out, was that although nothing would come of an approach, it was worth doing so as to sweeten relations with a falling ally. What Reynaud needed was military and moral support, he said, not caving in to Mussolini. Archibald Sinclair, who was attending in his capacity as Leader of the Liberal Party, agreed. ‘I am convinced of the futility of an approach to Italy at this time,’ he said. ‘Being in a tight corner, any weakness on our part would encourage the Germans and the Italians, and it would tend to undermine morale both in this country and in the Dominions. The suggestion that we are prepared to barter away pieces of British territory would have a deplorable effect and would make it difficult for us to continue the desperate struggle that faces us.’ Sinclair had hit the nail on the head and it now gave Churchill the opportunity to make clear what he really believed: that there should be no approach whatsoever. ‘At the moment our prestige in Europe is very low,’ he said. ‘The only way we could get it back is by showing the world that Germany has not beaten us. If, after two or three months, we can show that we are still unbeaten, our prestige will return. Even if we are beaten, we shall be no worse off than we should be if we now abandon the struggle. Let us therefore avoid being dragged down the slippery slope with France. The whole of this manoeuvre is intended to get us so deeply involved in negotiations that we shall be unable to turn back.’
Halifax now lost his temper. He pointed out that the Prime Minister had, the day before, agreed to make a tentative approach to Italy but now seemed to have changed his mind. Nor did Halifax recognize any resemblance between the action he was proposing and the suggestion that they would be suing for peace with Germany. If Britain’s independence was at stake then they could walk away from any talks, but if it was not, then he believed it was right to accept an offer that would save the country from avoidable disaster. Churchill reiterated his point that Hitler would be unlikely to offer any terms that were remotely acceptable.
This was what Halifax was finding so frustrating. Unlikely, yes, but not impossible; and this being so, it was, he believed, a mistake to rule out any chance of being offered reasonable terms. He simply did not buy the argument that to open any kind of dialogue was sure to lead only one way; he sensed Churchill was using his usual romantic rhetoric rather than common sense. So now h
e asked Churchill whether he would be prepared to consider any terms offered by Hitler, should he put them to France and Britain.
‘I would not join France in asking for terms,’ Churchill replied, ‘but if I were told what the terms offered were, I would be prepared to consider them.’
Chamberlain now suggested a compromise. Hitler would most likely make a definite offer to France and when the French replied that Britain was an ally and that they could not sue for peace without her, Hitler would tell France that Britain should send delegates to the talks. In that scenario, Chamberlain said, Britain should refuse to do so. Halifax still insisted they should not send a flat refusal with regard to any talks to France.
And then he issued his bombshell. He told Churchill plainly what he thought of him and threatened to resign if the Cabinet insisted on stubbornly refusing to open any channel for talks whatsoever. This was a thunderbolt that none of the other members had expected, least of all Churchill. ‘I can’t work with Winston any longer,’ Halifax told one of his Foreign Office colleagues afterwards. The split in the Cabinet was now threatening to plunge Britain into an even deeper crisis – one that, combined with the evacuation of the BEF, could prove catastrophic, and could easily bring down the Government. Should that happen, then a rudderless Britain, plunged into political turmoil, would find it very difficult to continue the fight.
Churchill now took his Foreign Secretary out into the garden at No. 10 for a private chat. At that moment, on the afternoon of Monday, 27 May, the fate of Britain, it seemed, depended heavily on these two men. Enormous, world-changing decisions were being made – both in Britain and amongst the Nazi command – by just a few men amongst all the many millions. And to a large extent these decisions boiled down to the differing characters and personalities of these individuals: Hitler’s megalomania and irrational paranoia; von Rundstedt’s military failings and stubbornness; Halifax’s patrician logic and exasperation with his Prime Minister from whom he was so different; and Churchill’s determined belief in the rightness of the stance he was making on behalf of his country.
Now, in the garden of No. 10, Halifax repeated his threat of resignation. It was Churchill’s task to dissuade him. He certainly did his best to soothe him, apologizing repeatedly and ‘full of affection’. Whether it worked or whether it was from some other deeper sense of duty, Halifax did not resign that day. The threat remained, however, because the essence of the split had still not been resolved.
There was a third War Cabinet that day, at 10 p.m., but it had been called to discuss yet another crisis. The Belgians had surrendered. As of midnight that night, they would no longer be in the fight. The north flank of the BEF was again desperately vulnerable and a mere 7,669 troops had been lifted from Dunkirk this first day of the evacuation. Whether Churchill could win over Halifax – and the rest of the War Cabinet – would have to wait another day. The stakes could not have been higher.
18
Dunkirk: The Beginning
‘WE NOW ARE receiving very little news,’ jotted Daidie Penna on 27 May, ‘which may be a good thing.’ She also wondered – with considerable perceptiveness – why the Germans appeared not to have made good use of their ‘gap’. ‘I should have thought they would have rushed troops through it,’ she added, ‘as fast as they could get them there.’
Very few people knew the true extent of the disaster, not even Harold Nicolson, who that morning at the Ministry of Information was also commenting on the paucity of news. He was soon put in the picture, however, when at a meeting at the Ministry later on that day he heard about the situation in France from General Mason-Macfarlane, just back from BEF Headquarters having commanded Macforce. ‘Macfarlane tells us in blunt language that the BEF are now surrounded,’ noted Harold, ‘and that a disaster is bound to take place.’ Macfarlane, as Gort’s emissary, wanted the Ministry of Information to know that it was the Belgians deserting them – which was deeply unfair – and the lack of French fight that had caused the problems, and urged them to save the reputation of the British army by putting the blame on their allies instead. Harold and his colleagues called for their boss and Duff Cooper then explained that to take that tack with the French would be to shatter any hope of maintaining the alliance. The policy would be to prepare the public for the shock by not giving away too much information to the Germans.
This was further agreed upon at the late Cabinet that night, which Duff Cooper attended. He wanted the public to know something of the seriousness of the situation but Churchill was anxious that there should not be any detailed statement about the evacuation. In this moment of extreme crisis, the policy of openness was, for the moment, to be put to one side.
Communications – or the lack of them – had once again got the better of the Allies in their increasingly fragile pocket in Flanders. For much of the night, Gort and Pownall had been trying to speak with Blanchard to discuss the evacuation and the defence of the narrow corridor. Every time they followed a lead, they arrived to discover the French general had already moved on, without notifying Gort or his staff. Late that night, they even found themselves following a false trail to Dunkirk. ‘Much of the town was in flames,’ noted Henry Pownall, ‘and falling houses blocked the roads, bodies of civilians were lying in the streets.’ They also learned that the port had been destroyed and was thus unusable. It did not make them sanguine. Without ever catching up with Blanchard, they returned to the new HQ at Houtkerque at 3 a.m.
Plenty of troops were already moving that night of the 27th/28th, however, some back to Dunkirk, others to fill the gap left by the retreating Belgians. Even before news of their planned capitulation arrived it had become necessary to urgently plug the gap on the north-east part of the line. General Brooke, the commander of II Corps, which was now holding the northern British front, had held a conference with his commanders early that morning. His three divisions were spread out from west of Menin to the east of Lille, but now some complicated movements were needed. In the middle, 4th Division was to move back a short distance behind the River Lys around the village of Warneton. As the new battalion adjutant, Second Lieutenant Norman Field had an important role to play in getting the 2nd Royal Fusiliers back to the Lys as part of 4th Division’s move. Vehicles were brought up and by 11 p.m. the companies along the Comines Canal around Halluin began to be thinned out. The rain helped keep the enemy at bay, although it made life miserable for the men.
Major-General Bernard Montgomery’s 3rd Division, however, then at the bottom of II Corps’s line, was to swing behind 4th and 5th Divisions and fill the hole on 5th Division’s left flank. This was a major operation, which involved moving the entire division some fifty miles. In order to achieve this, it was decided to abandon its medium guns and for the infantry to do away with any kit that was not absolutely necessary so as to cram them into the available vehicles. Passing under the noses of the Germans, on a wet and windy pitch black night, it was much to Montgomery’s credit and his powers of organization that this was successfully achieved. It certainly gave the BEF a day’s grace on the northern front.
Lord Gort, meanwhile, finally caught up with Blanchard at 11 a.m. on the 28th. The French Army Group Commander walked into Gort’s command post at around 11 a.m., the same time as the Belgians were laying down their arms. He was horrified to learn that the BEF was now evacuating; no-one in the French High Command had told him, although there was barely any other conclusion that could have been drawn. Gort and Pownall now urged him to order the French First Army, at the bottom of the corridor, to join the BEF in falling back to Dunkirk. Gort was planning to retreat that night to at least the line Ypres–Poperinghe–Cassel behind the River Yser, some twenty-five miles from the coast. British troops were carrying out heroic defences along the southern strongpoints of Hazebrouck, Cassel and Wormhoudt, but in between there had been significant penetrations. An urgent and consolidated withdrawal was essential. ‘Whereat,’ noted Pownall, ‘he went completely off the deep end.’ Such a withdrawal was imp
ossible, Blanchard told them, but Gort pressed his point. There was not a moment to lose.
Blanchard still felt the situation was useless when a liaison officer arrived from Général René Prioux, now commanding First Army. Prioux, apparently, also thought a withdrawal was impossible – his men were too tired; an evacuation could not be made from Dunkirk in any case; it wasn’t worth the effort involved. Blanchard backed up Prioux’s decision then asked Gort whether he still intended to withdraw on his own. Yes, Gort replied. So that was that – the First Army would have to be left to its fate. ‘So ended the meeting,’ noted Pownall. ‘Except for one or two excited moments, there was no unfriendliness and we said goodbye quite cordially. But Blanchard is a professor, no general, and the situation was much too big for him to compete with.’
In the south, Guderian’s panzers, now that they had been allowed to move forward, were taking a back seat. In reserve now was 10th Panzer, while 1st and 2nd Panzer pressed on towards Dunkirk and the 20th Motorized Division, with the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and Grossdeutschland Regiments subordinated to it, was pushing hard against the British line. Guderian still hoped to reach Dunkirk, but his part in Germany’s miraculous victory was now almost done. His panzers could play a supporting role, but it was infiltration by the infantry that was going to clear the kind of stubborn, dug-in defence they were now encountering. There were ugly scenes too. On the 28th, eighty POWs from the 2nd Royal Warwickshire Regiment were executed by Waffen-SS troops of the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment, while further south, near Merville, SS-Totenkopf troops also massacred ninety-seven men of the 2nd Royal Norfolks. Hans-Ekkehard Bob may have been suffused with a sense of knightly chivalry, but not so these men, many of whom had carried out multiple executions of Jews and others during the Polish campaign.
The Battle of Britain Page 28