by Sean Longden
For all those men detailed to hold off the enemy there was a sense of dread. Ever since the retreat had started, the troops had faced the realization that the enemy was far stronger and better organized than the Allied forces. Yet every day some unit – somewhere across the front lines – was thrown into battle to halt the enemy advance. Like King Canute, it seemed to the troops, they were being asked to do the impossible and hold off the tide. But unlike Canute, the troops of the rearguard were soon washed away.
Bill Holmes and the men of the Royal Sussex Regiment were among those forming the rearguard. On 22 May, at Anseghem, Holmes watched through the clear morning skies as German planes above them directed shellfire into their positions. From 4 a.m. onwards the battalion found themselves under fire. In the early afternoon they watched as their own 2nd Battalion withdrew through their lines, a sure sign the battle was not going well. Then, in the early evening, the Sussex infantrymen made contact with the enemy. This was the moment the volunteers among them had signed up for. For all among them it was a life-changing moment, the time when they first opened fire on a real, live enemy. Sid Seal, defending the battalion HQ, recalled: ‘It was a big step for us all. People have often asked me if I killed anyone. I don’t know. You are just firing at people in the distance. We were all firing. But when they go down you don’t know if it is you or the man next to you who killed them. You just think “Get him before he gets you.” The survival instinct takes over.’
For Bill Holmes it was something he had never expected, never wanted and yet could not avoid:
You don’t aim as if you are shooting pigeons. You just lay in hedgerows and watch and wait making yourself scarce. I was on the Bren gun – I didn’t have trouble shooting at people, but you do feel guilty. But you can’t do anything about it. It’s awkward. When you get to war, every day you knew another of your mates would be dead. It was terrible but you got used to it – because you’ve got your mates with you. You’d go through hell for each other. We laughed about things. You had to have a sense of humour – we’d see the funny side of things, like somebody having their clothes blown off, or being shot. It seems awful but we lived with it every day.
His views were reflected by a soldier who was seen sitting on a wall reading a text in Latin. When asked why he was reading it he replied with a grim humour that Latin was useful because it was a dead language and he liked to be prepared.
That evening, following their first contact with enemy infantry, the Sussex withdrew to the River Lys. Unlike their experiences earlier in the day, the move went well and they retreated without difficulty, enjoying an uneventful march towards Courtrai. By the 25th the Sussex found themselves at Caestre, a position they held for the next three days. Having established themselves, the infantry came under fire throughout the 26th. For Bill Holmes, it was another of the violent introductions to man’s hideous appetite for destruction:
We were tired from marching. That night our food was a long time coming. We were in dugouts – two per trench. The time came to get our food. My mate asked me should he go or would I? You had to run, crawl and jump to reach the food. So I went. When I got back to the trench he was dead, hit by a shell. I thought how lucky I was, ‘cause it was him or me. You can’t describe the sight – it was a charred, disfigured body still holding his rifle.
The horrors continued the next day when the battalion HQ came under artillery fire and then at midday around twenty enemy tanks approached. Sid Seal remembered the attacks on the HQ:
We soon realized there was a war on! It was pretty terrible. You were seeing chaps alongside you getting killed and you just thought ‘God. Is it my turn next?’ It was a horrible thing to see chaps you’d known all your life get shot and killed or blown to pieces. I thought ‘What the devil’s happening?’ Fear just takes hold. All these silly buggers who say they were never afraid – well, they were! Everyone was. It was natural. It affects you terribly but after a time you get used to seeing dead people around you.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of soldiers manning the much-maligned Boyes anti-tank rifle – a weapon that was already obsolete since it was only effective against the enemy’s most lightly armoured tanks – six tanks were put out of action and the rest withdrew to harass the Sussex with machine-gun fire for the rest of the day. During the early afternoon a heavy rain began to fall, bringing further misery to the troops. So heavy was the rainfall that the flares they fired to call for supporting artillery fire could not be seen.
That evening, as the rain cleared, Bill Holmes and his comrades looked up to see enemy bombers in the skies above Caestre. It was an ominous sight. They slowly circled the village without opening fire. With each turn the watching infantrymen felt their mouths go dry with fear as they became certain the end had come. But for the moment they had been granted a reprieve. Like vultures circling their prey, the German pilots decided this was not a suitable target and flew off ready to unleash their destruction on some other poor target.
As the infantrymen of the Sussex Regiment held off the enemy in Caestre, they were unaware of the total chaos across the Allied front. It was clear the battle was not going well in their sector, but the position elsewhere was unclear. Even many officers were uncertain of the scale of the defeat being inflicted by the Germans. The progress of the enemy towards the Channel via the Somme valley was unknown to most. The fall of Calais and Boulogne had not been made known to them, nor the momentous decision to withdraw the army from the beaches at Dunkirk.
The fateful decision to withdraw to the coast and embark the army at Dunkirk had been brewing in the minds of the generals for some days. As early as the 19th Lord Gort had realized that unless the gap between the British and French Armies was closed the consequences would be dire. So he began to consider falling back as far as the River Somme or withdrawing to the coast. It seemed, with Army Group A facing a virtually unchallenged run towards the coast, that the retreat to the coast was the only logical option. Gort had telephoned the War Office to discuss the matter. It was the beginning of the process that saw the evacuation finally ordered on 26 May.
Oblivious of these orders, the infantrymen of the Sussex Regiment continued in their duty to fight as part of the rearguard. Meanwhile, their divisional commander, Major-General Osborne, was embroiled in his own battle. His enemy was not the German Army. Instead he was facing an indignant Frenchman. Osborne had been called to a conference in the town of Steenvoorde, to meet with General Prioux under whose command his division had been placed. Both men knew the British were withdrawing to Dunkirk but Prioux was pessimistic about the chances of escaping. He was convinced they would be slaughtered and maintained they should surrender to avoid further bloodshed. Furthermore, he insisted that evacuation was impossible and that it would cause bad feeling between the Allies. Osborne argued against the Frenchman’s defeatism, telling him that attemping to escape would be worthwhile if he could ensure the escape of French troops ready to continue the war from Britain. The Englishman told Prioux that nothing was impossible and that if he broke out ‘the whole world would acclaim his feat’.11 Osborne’s optimism was well placed – in the weeks that followed, the world was indeed astounded by the miraculous escape from Dunkirk.
It was a strange situation for Osborne. Some of the French officers openly supported the idea of fighting back to the coast. Others were gloomy, obediently siding with their defeatist commander. With no final decision made, Osborne left the French and returned to his HQ. When he returned to Prioux that evening the Frenchman was even more subdued. Osborne found him sitting with a pair of his staff officers in a room lit by just two candles. The gloom of the scene was a fitting situation for what followed. Prioux told the general he had made his final decision. He informed Osborne that he was preparing for the surrender of his forces and that the Englishman was at liberty to make his own decision over the future of the 44th Division.
It was decided that the positions would be held until midday on the 29th, when the 44th Division would wi
thdraw towards the sea. However, Major-General Osborne was then given another shock at the headquarters of the British 3 Corps. He discovered his corps commander had decided not to wait for the time agreed with General Prioux. Instead the corps was going to commence the withdrawal at 11 p.m. that evening. The shock decision left Osborne with a dilemma – his men were fully engaged with the enemy, and could not simply disengage and head northwards. Indeed, as they spoke, the Sussex Regiment were engaging German tanks. Yet, with the rest of 3 Corps about to depart and with a French Army beside him about to surrender, Osborne had no choice but to order a withdrawal. And so at 10.30 that evening he ordered all units of the division to retreat north. There was an eerie sense of finality for the officers who received the orders. Not only were they told to destroy all excess transport but they were also instructed to destroy all secret papers. And so, the division withdrew to the nearest high ground, the Mont des Cats.
At 3 a.m. on 29 May the first troops of the 4th Sussex arrived on the hill. It marked the battalion’s final hours as a cohesive unit. Approaching the hill in the faint morning light, Bill Holmes and his comrades could see the outline of the monastery’s gothic stone walls. Beneath them, the steep road leading to the summit mocked the soldiers, who gasped for breath as they made their weary way past the queues of lorries all heading for the doubtful sanctuary of the monastery, with its boarded-up restaurant and shuttered souvenir shop. The lines of transport, nose to tail, wheezed just as desperately as the troops as they inched their way up the forbidding slope. Above them, the hilltop was crowded with troops all awaiting an assault they knew must come. They were not wrong.
In the words of Lieutenant Hodgins, an officer at the 131 Brigade HQ: ‘There was very little chance of any cover and the situation was the most unpleasant as the whole of the Mont des Cats was covered with troops.’12 His words hardly did justice to their situation. Once atop the hill the troops were subject to the most terrifying assault they had so far experienced. At 8.30 a.m., just as Bill Holmes and his mates reached the summit, the first artillery fire of the day commenced. Not waiting for the inevitable toll of casualties, they moved straight down to positions in the relative safety of the wooded hillside. Then, one hour later, twenty German warplanes arrived overhead, bombing and machine-gunning the troops clustered around the hilltop. Bill Holmes watched in awe as tanks fired flaming tracer rounds towards them to guide the aircraft circling in the skies. Their attack lasted a full thirty minutes. Once the planes departed, German mortars and tank guns opened fire on the infantrymen as they scrambled for whatever cover they could find. Again Holmes watched men dropping dead before his eyes as shell splinters and piercing shards of tree bark filled the air. From his position he could see the town of Cassel burning atop a nearby hill. Closer still, he could make out the ominous grey-clad figures of German soldiers in the fields around. Discarded uniforms and helmets littered the ground. Arms and ammunition were scattered everywhere. There was little the soldiers could do. If they stayed where they were they would surely die. Yet death seemed just as certain for any man who ran away. Indeed, where could they run?
It was little wonder the hillsides were so covered with troops. This one small area was crowded with soldiers: the 2nd, 4th and 5th Battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment, three battalions of the Queen’s Regiment, two battalions of West Kents and one of men from the East Kents. The commanding officer of the l/5th Queen’s Regiment ordered his men to move to positions clear of the hilltop to help stem the ever-increasing toll of casualties being inflicted on them. As the casualties mounted, their padre, Reverend Brode, moved out into the open to help them. Disregarding his personal safety, he tended the wounded and dying men. As a fellow officer of the battalion later described it, his ‘fearless example was a great encouragement to everyone’.13
At 10.30 a.m., with the death toll mounting and their situation hopeless, the order was finally issued for the entire division to abandon the hill. Sid Seal was at the 4th Sussex HQ when the signal came through: ‘We got the order “All troops withdraw from Mont des Cats to Dunkirk via Poperinghe. No transport to be taken. Travel in parties. Scatter if enemy tanks approach.”’
The withdrawal commenced at 11 a.m. The orders for the retreat towards Dunkirk made no reference to the wounded. For Sid Seal this could mean only one thing: ‘We were soon aware of how bad things were. The officer told us we were to leave the wounded where they were and that anyone wounded on the way back would be left behind. What we had to do was save ourselves. It was a real blow. Several of our chaps were left there. One of them was a good friend of mine, Bill Stone. We’d been in the Territorials together before the war. He’d had his leg smashed and I had to leave him there. He lost his leg.’
While some of the wounded were left behind to be taken prisoner, others were fortunate enough to escape towards the coast. It was all a matter of timing. Among them was Noel Matthews, a signaller from the Queen’s Regiment: ‘I was blown up twice. One shell landed slap-bang right beside the trench. I was half-buried. I struggled out of that and got myself into a shed. Then another shell came down and demolished the shed on top of me. It must have had bags of grain upstairs because it all collapsed on me. I was pinned against the wall. I thought this was like a film. The fact that I had almost been killed didn’t enter my mind.’ Dragged to safety, he was taken to the battalion aid post. Although seriously shaken, he was unwounded and later the same day was put on a truck. Rather than being deposited at the Mont des Cats, the truck he was in continued north towards Dunkirk. Had he been sent to the monastery for treatment his fate would have been very different: ‘I missed the bombing of the hill. Instead I reached De Panne in safety.’
While some units were able to move from their positions in relative safety, others were not so fortunate. Bill Holmes and the rest of D Company were among the latter. As he descended the hill, Holmes turned back to watch as the monastery was hit by incoming artillery fire. Doing their best to ignore the slaughter of their mates and the dedicated doctors and orderlies, the men of D Company moved around the south-east edge of the hill, beneath a canopy of trees, but failed to reach the assembly point chosen by Lt-Colonel Whistler. The fate of the wounded was not their concern. As they escaped, shells burst around them, a stark reminder that they could not linger on the hill.
As they withdrew, the troops were forced to scatter as a French convoy came under attack by low-flying enemy aircraft. With the battalion no longer operating as a cohesive unit, the remaining troops began to divide into small groups who made their way northwards without either interference or guidance from their officers. Sid Seal watched as his platoon split into two groups, one on each side of a hedge. He later discovered the other party were all taken prisoner before they reached Dunkirk.
In the chaos troops were found wandering around on the hill, uncertain of their orders. Officers who attempted to round up these stragglers found themselves left behind in the rush to escape the hail of incoming fire. Every soldier at the Mont des Cats shared fears and uncertainties familiar to soldiers throughout history. For most of them – teenage Territorials, barely trained militiamen, ageing reservists hastily recalled to the colours and the old sweats of the regular battalions – the only thing that had made military life bearable was standing shoulder to shoulder with their comrades. Even the most reluctant recruits had found a camaraderie they had seldom known in civvy street, realizing military service could be tolerable if they shared the burdens of life in uniform with their new mates. Yet, as the withdrawal commenced, this too was denied them.
In the days that followed, life became a lottery as the men streamed back towards Dunkirk. The first of the parties of Sussex infantrymen embarked from the beaches of Dunkirk the very same day they had left the Mont des Cats. For others the journey took days – meaning it would be years before they once more headed home across the English Channel.
There was a finality in the order given to Bill Holmes after they left the Mont des Cats. The sergeant had ut
tered the words that every soldier dreaded: ‘Every man for himself All they knew was that they should head towards the plumes of smoke reeling into the sky above Dunkirk. As some of his comrades tried to escape across country in vehicles that had survived the bombing, Bill Holmes decided it safest to remain on foot. He soon found himself separated from the main body of troops as he headed across fields to avoid the roads he knew would be full of Germans:
I was with three lads. We walked away from the hill. As we were walking off we were talking. And all of a sudden a shell took my mate. It covered him – buried him underground. If we could’ve got him out straight away he would’ve lived. But we couldn’t, because we were being bombed and machine-gunned. I ended up hiding under a clamp of rotting mangels. There were two German planes firing at us, peppering the ground. I could feel the bullets hitting around me. How I escaped, I’ll never know.
In the chaos all that counted was survival. As Sid Seal headed towards Dunkirk his mind was filled with dread that he might be left behind. Having already been forced to leave some of his mates behind, he dreaded sharing their fate:
On the way to the coast we came under fire and I got hit by a piece of shrapnel. It cut my hand and split my lip open. The front of my battledress was covered in blood. Oh God, I thought my time was up. Luckily it wasn’t a bad wound, but it bled a lot. But at first I didn’t know. I was relieved. I didn’t wait to get it dressed. I kept going. I could remember what the officer had said about leaving the wounded behind. But my one thought was that I would not be left there.