Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind

by Sean Longden

  Recognizing who it was seated on the front of the tank, the Seaforths held their fire, watching as their Gracie was driven ever closer. Eventually he was released and the tank withdrew towards the enemy lines. Reporting to the battalion HQ, the message he carried was simple. The Seaforths were in a hopeless situation. The rest of the division had surrendered and they were surrounded. If they did not stop resisting they would be bombed into oblivion.

  But surrender was not an option for the proud Seaforths. Sergeant Fields refused to return with the message to the Germans. Instead he chose to remain with his regiment as the decision was taken to split up and attempt to reach safety. During the attempted escape, Colour Sergeant Fields managed to reach the coast but was taken prisoner. While in captivity he was able to report the incident to General Fortune.

  One of those men who watched the arrival of ‘Gracie’ Fields was Jim Reed, the under-age soldier from Sheffield who had volunteered to fight as a Seaforth Highlander:

  It was a real shock to see ‘Gracie’ strapped on that tank. Then a sergeant came round and told us the division had surrendered, but that the Seaforths weren’t going to surrender. It was our last battle. We were in close-quarters fighting, holding the upper floor of a farm, overlooking a sunken road. A German half-track came along and stopped opposite us. I had one magazine – half-full – for the Bren gun. My mate said he’d take out the machine-gunner and I’d get the driver. I could see him clearly – he was just ten feet away. We fired down on to them. As soon as I hit the driver the half-track ran down and crashed into some woods. We didn’t waste any more ammo on them – anyway I only had a couple of rounds left. We could hear them calling to us to come and take them prisoner. We didn’t bother. That was just hours before we were taken prisoner.

  Eventually it became clear such resistance could continue no longer. Jim Reed had used some of his final magazine on the crew of the half-track and realized there was little else he could do:

  We had no choice. What settled it was the wounded. They were in a barn and that got bombed. We said we would hang on until 6p.m. to see what happened. It was not worth carrying on. There was nothing for the 2-inch mortars, we had no ammunition. We could do nothing and we needed to save the wounded. We had to surrender but we had no idea what was going to happen. We realized how exhausted we were. We’d had no food that day and hadn’t slept for two or three days. But when we finally surrendered it was the worst moment of my life.

  The 4th Seaforths found themselves in no less desperate a situation. In the trenches of his company HQ, David Mowatt’s company commander made the decision to go to the beach to check out the rescue situation for one last time. Mowatt and another man accompanied the major. Making their way down the rough path they discovered there was no possibility of escape and, returning to their positions, it was obvious to all that they had no choice but to surrender or be wiped out. When the moment came it was strangely numbing for the last of the defenders: ‘We just waited for them to walk in. Rommel came up – he was on one of the first tanks to come through – he spoke to us. He said, “I hope you will be treated fairly and that you will not be too long as a prisoner of war.” He was right there at the front with his troops – he probably knew we’d had it! He knew he was safe.’

  Despite the German general’s words of sympathy, as the remnants of the St Sylvain defenders were rounded up there was little mercy shown to those who had fought so long and hard. Some paid a harsh price for their defiance. One group, including two officers and five other ranks, were forced to sit on the bonnet of a car, despite there being room inside, as they were driven for twelve miles (twenty kilometres). It seemed they were being deliberately paraded as trophies of war. The senior officer in the group, Major James Murray Grant, the grandfather of the actor Hugh Grant, noticed the pistol pointed at him throughout the journey, reminding him of the treatment of ‘Grade’ Fields, whose ordeal he had witnessed. With the surrender of St Valery a strange calm settled over the town. Jim Charters and his comrades abandoned their hopeless positions, destroying their guns as they left, then assembled in the town square. They arrived just in time to watch as General Rommel came into town on the leading German tank.

  In scattered groups, sharing their last cigarettes, the exhausted soldiers simply hung around the harbour awaiting orders. For most it would take days for the reality of what had happened to sink in. Instead, with numbed emotions, they watched as the German troops took control of the town they had hoped would be their escape route. Frustrated British officers watched as German soldiers strolled along the quayside and their commander Major-General Fortune was photographed beside the battle’s victor, the soon to be legendary General Erwin Rommel.

  So the entire 51st Highland Division went ‘into the bag’. Leaving his Vickers machine-gun behind him, Jim Pearce joined the lines of prisoners: ‘There were dead soldiers all around us. Some were people you didn’t know but some were my friends. It was hard to see your mates were dead, but you had to just accept it. You can do that when you are young. Luckily my brother had survived, so I had someone to support me.’ Thousands of men like Pearce and his brother were herded into barbed-wire enclosures hastily erected by the Germans to house the incoming prisoners. Some arrived in the pouring rain. Already exhausted by the week of fighting and dejected by defeat, their pitiful situation was heightened by the weather, especially when their captors insisted on the prisoners handing over the gas capes and groundsheets that were helping to keep them dry.

  As they passed through the wire they were searched for any remaining sharp implements, like knives and scissors. Some men lost cigarette lighters and matches. Vast heaps of abandoned equipment were piled up as the dejected and defeated men faced their first day in captivity. A wave of helplessness and hopelessness swept over the Jocks as they slumped down on to the grass and contemplated what lay ahead of them. As the prisoners assembled some were in tears, others were praying, most were too tired to show emotion. John Christie later described the consensus of opinion: ‘The general feeling was that we had been “sold down the river” and “left holding the baby”. Don’t forget that for a week we had been listening to the details of the evacuation at Dunkirk and being told of how all the stops had been pulled out to make it succeed.’5 In the eyes of all those who went ‘into the bag’ that day, Christie was right. The 51st Highland Division had fought on, against hopeless odds, to ensure the survival of others. As a result the survivors of an entire infantry division marched off to face almost five years in captivity.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Wounded

  In battle you will live dangerously and you will feel the stark grip of fear; you will be unarmed amid violent, indiscriminate lethality; to you the hurt and the frightened will turn for easement and comfort; through your devoted service the profession of medicine will gain added dignity.

  From a speech given to medical students about to join the Royal Army Medical Corps during Second World War

  As the remnants of the BEF marched into captivity there were many others in no fit state to embark on a long journey by foot. The vicious battles that raged across France and Belgium resulted in vast numbers of wounded soldiers who were left behind in hospitals, aid posts and casualty clearing stations. Some were so badly wounded they were hardly aware they were now prisoners – many were unconcerned about the fate of the BEF, focusing instead on their own physical situation. Unable to leave their hospital beds, they had no time to trouble themselves with the outcome of the war. Others had wounds which had been sufficient to result in their exit from the battlefield. Yet these same men were now considered fit enough to join the exodus towards the Reich.

  There was a third group also left behind to the mercies of the enemy. In the aid posts and hospitals were a group of soldiers for whom the defeat of the BEF did not mean the end of their duties. The surgeons, doctors, medics, orderlies, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers were still focusing on the survival of the wounded who had been sacrificed in
the retreat. Wounded men – regardless of their nationality – should be treated with respect. Medical treatment should be given wherever and whenever possible. The Red Cross was a symbol that stood out above all others. Regardless of their rank – whether senior surgeons or lowly stretcher-bearers – medical staff provided a standard of care to the utmost of their abilities long after the majority of the BEF had escaped across the Channel. To men like Les Allan, transferred away from his company to become a bearer simply because his commanding officer knew he had first-aid training from his time with the St John Ambulance, and Captain MacInnes, the padre with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who remained behind with the wounded since all the medical staff had already been withdrawn, the wounded would have much reason to be grateful in the years ahead.

  The medics’ status as ‘protected personnel’ was enshrined in Article 9 of the Geneva Convention: ‘If they fall into the hands of the enemy they shall not be treated as prisoners of war . . . They shall be sent back to the belligerent to which they belong as soon as a route shall be open . . . They shall carry out their duties under the direction of the enemy; they shall preferably be engaged in the care of the wounded and sick of the belligerent to which they belong.’1

  Although large sections of the Royal Army Medical Corps – RAMC – were members of the Territorial Army they considered their organization to be highly professional. The RAMC was one part of the army that had undergone many changes during the inter-war years. The changing weapons of war – in particular the use of shells that exploded with a greater force than those twenty years before – called for a new system of care.

  Wounded men would be immediately removed from the front lines by stretcher-bearers whose task was to deposit them at the regimental aid post. There they would receive first aid. From there they would be collected by RAMC stretcher-bearers, transferred to ambulances and taken to an advanced dressing station. At the ADS the wounded would be given any immediately required treatment, then classified into three categories. The first group were men suffering from shock, who were taken to a field dressing station to be given blood transfusions and other treatments for their condition. The second group, those requiring immediate attention, were sent to an advanced surgical centre where they could be given emergency operations. The third group, those fit to travel, were sent to a casualty clearing station. These were equipped to give all manner of treatments, including x-rays. Following treatment, all of the wounded were transferred to a forward general hospital from which the lightly wounded could receive treatment prior to being returned to their units and the more serious cases could be transferred to a base hospital.

  Graham King, a pre-war Territorial, serving with the 13th Casualty Clearing Station, had a good understanding of the modern treatment methods and how the RAMC had changed during the inter-war years: ‘Medics always seemed to be despised. They got the idea we were sitting on our arses way back from the front just waiting for the casualties to come in. That might have been right in the ’14–’18 war, but with what had happened in the Spanish Civil War they found the quicker you treated patients for secondary shock they had a far better chance of survival. So we were placed up near the front, treating casualties as they occurred.’

  Every man captured by the Germans in May and June 1940 experienced the same emotions: shock, bewilderment, fear and, in a great many cases, loneliness. These were combined with thirst, hunger, sleep deprivation and an all-engulfing sense of mental and physical exhaustion that numbed the prisoners. Such was the hunger experienced by one wounded man that he ate a hunk of bread – green with mould – he had pulled from the mud of a farmyard. If the physical and mental impact caused emotional turmoil for the fit prisoners, the shock was far worse for the wounded men. Not only did they have to cope with the impact of captivity but they had to do it while enduring physical pain and often the knowledge they might either succumb to their wounds or never fully recover.

  The scenes witnessed by many wounded as they made their way slowly to get treatment left an indelible impression. Fred Gilbert, shot three times prior to surrendering, had to march past the twisted corpses of the rest of his section as he made his way to an aid post. Another soldier recalled being transported by his captors on the front of a tank and seeing the charred corpses of his fellow soldiers in the doorways of burning barns. The horror of such scenes, combined with the pain of their wounds and the fear of what might happen to them, created a general sense of hopeless isolation for the wounded men.

  The experience of being wounded and captured was recorded by Geoff Griffin, a twenty-two-year-old, serving in the Royal Army Service Corps, who was sent to defend a canal to the east of the Dunkirk perimeter. While exposing himself in order to fire at the enemy he noticed another German swing a machine-pistol towards him: ‘I felt as if someone had knocked me down with a tank and I fell backwards into the trench, with blood streaming from four bullet holes in my left shoulder. Yes, the German had missed my head, so I lived for that moment in time. Strangely, I felt no pain.’2 In an effort to help stem the flow of blood from Griffin’s wounds, his mate tore away his tunic and applied field dressings to his shoulder. When his mate attempted to leave the trench to get assistance he was immediately cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire.

  Griffin later wrote of the hours that followed: ‘Somehow I survived the night, drifting in and out of my delirium, praying and imagining myself back home with my parents . . . Darkness faded into light and I awoke to complete silence except for birds singing . . . this is it, I thought, this is death and hopefully it’s heaven.’ The very silence confounded him and he looked around, to discover he was still alive, left all alone in the aftermath of a vicious battle. One thought filled his mind: ‘Had the war ended?’3

  Unsteady from the loss of blood, he rose to his feet, putting on his helmet and picking up his rifle. He soon dropped the rifle, realizing his wounds rendered him incapable of firing it. Standing on the edge of the trench, he surveyed the scenes: ‘Bodies of my friends littered the garden and there were many lifeless forms on the canal bank further away.’ He came across the surreal sight of two men beside a Bren gun, one as if ready to fire it, the other kneeling ready to reload the gun. He tapped one on the shoulder only to see the man topple over. Both the men had been killed by blast. Eventually, searching for food, he found a house full of dead and wounded, most of whom had crawled in to seek shelter from the battle they had been no longer able to contribute to. There Griffin awaited the inevitable arrival of the Germans.

  Wounded in similar circumstances, Fred Gilbert didn’t have to wait for the Germans in order receive treatment. Instead, at gunpoint, he was waved away into a village where an aid post had already been established. There he was joined by a handful of other survivors of his unit. Arriving in the village, they were struck by the irony of what happened next. British artillery – the supporting fire they had asked for to help drive back the enemy from their positions – finally landed around them. But it was too late; the battle was over:

  We were driven to the village school where they had set up an aid post. There were two British medical officers. They were patching blokes up and cutting arms and legs off – just throwing them into a bucket. This horrid place was packed and they were using a trestle table to operate on. I had my arm, side and ear bandaged up, I was covered in blood – I was a mess. There were plenty of lads in a bad state – worse than me. The doctors said to me, ‘You’re all right, you’re only wounded!’ I was glad to get out of there; it was more like a slaughterhouse than a surgery.

  Blessing his good fortune, Gilbert moved into one of the school rooms and was mobile enough to go outside to escape the tragic scenes within. What he saw only helped to increase his despair:

  The thing that made me feel sick was when I went outside. The whole French army seemed to be marching past. They were prisoners. This endless column – four abreast – seemed to be going past from dawn to dusk, there were thousands of them. They were carrying
food, all with their full kit. They were all clean and tidy. I thought to myself ‘God, I’ve been fighting to save you bloody lot!’ Then I looked at our boys with their torn, bloodstained battledress, unshaven and hungry, no equipment, nothing, all of them wounded, some of them incomplete. They had given their all to try and save France. It made me so sad and, in a way, bitter.

  Doing his best to forget what he had seen, Fred Gilbert attempted to offer whatever assistance he could to the more badly wounded men: ‘The floor was absolutely full of bodies – blokes with arms and legs missing. I had marked my space – I could stretch out, I was lucky. There was a bloke lying next to me who had lost his arm and his other hand was damaged. He couldn’t get up. He wanted to go to the loo, so I had to help him. I only had one arm. I had to pick him up enough to get him into a position to do it.’ Yet if these scenes of suffering were enough to tax the more resilient of men, it was about to get worse: ‘There was just a narrow pathway through the middle of us. They came and put a wounded bloke in the way, he was laid right up against me. I said, “You can’t put him there – what if we want to get up?” The bloke said, “Don’t worry, he won’t be there long. I think he might be dead now.” He didn’t last the night. It wasn’t very pleasant sleeping next to a corpse – having to climb over him to get to the loo.’

  Despite these conditions, Fred Gilbert was fortunate to receive such swift treatment. Any delays risked the increased possibility of infection. For those with abdominal wounds, the reality was that they faced death if their wounds were not treated within six hours. Prompt treatment was also vital for those wounded who came in contact with the soil because of the increased chance of gas gangrene.