Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind

by Sean Longden

  As the columns passed through the countryside, whole piles of vegetables disappeared into the bellies of the marchers. Yet for many the appearance of the piles was as much a frustration as it was a relief, as Dick Taylor remembered: ‘You’d see a clamp of vegetables in the distance, but by the time you got there it had all gone.’ Even the condition of vegetables was of little interest, with some men recalling eating rotten onions taken from a roadside pile. Desperate for sustenance, David Mowatt joined the gangs that descended on to the vegetable piles: ‘We reached this pile of turnips – all covered in soil – that heap had a life of its own, it just moved. It disappeared as we went past. We also got blighted potatoes. But they nearly killed us. I was very ill, we got diarrhoea.’ As a trained chef, Ken Willats knew more about food than the majority of his comrades. Yet, just like the rest of them, there was nothing he could do but join the scavenging hordes: ‘One time I picked up some crushed rhubarb from the road. I thought “I’ll have that!” That was the length you were prepared to go to get something to eat. Rhubarb’s not very nice uncooked, but when you are starving it’s like nectar!’ While large numbers were hit by stomach upsets as a result of the poor food, there was another side effect suffered by those who had been forced to eat the most basic of roadside produce. As RAMC man Ernie Grainger remembered: ‘Food! We ate grass. As a result, when you passed water it was green – because of the chlorophyll!’

  Even the homes they marched past became fair game for the increasingly hungry soldiers. In one village Tommy Arnott and his mate ran to a house: ‘There was an Alsatian chained to the wall so we went round the back and opened the door. The lady in the house had been baking bread – it was on a tray – big square loaves. She was going to put the dog on us but, by the time she got the dog, we ran off to the column clutching two loaves. Poor soul, we pinched her bread, but that’s what starvation does to you.’

  Driven to desperation by the lack of food, some men tried to get help. There were those who feigned sickness, hoping it might lead to better treatment. In one instance a soldier who found himself amid a large group of French prisoners discovered they had facilities for treating the sick. So he feigned a seizure, was carried to some farm buildings used as an aid post, then kept visiting the latrines to suggest he had dysentery. The ruse worked and he was able to get food from the French and a few days of desperately needed rest. After a few days’ rest he moved on, before trying the same ruse of a feigned seizure and finding himself put on to a truck carrying the sick.

  One of those who wasn’t feigning when he collapsed amid the marching hordes was Eric Reeves. He was one of the men who was ‘travelling light’ – he had no greatcoat, no groundsheet, no mess tin and no waterbottle. All he had was an empty gas mask case and a small haversack. Everything else had been lost when he was captured. There was something else he was not carrying. Reeves was a small man, just over five foot tall with hardly any reserves of fat to sustain him as he marched day after day without food.

  After four or five days I was exhausted – I’d lost all my mates by this time – and we’d stopped for the night in a field. It was freezing that night and we were wet through. The next morning you could see steam coming off the blokes’ uniforms as they eventually dried out. I’d had very little sleep and as I got up I just collapsed. I sank down to my knees. I heard a bloke say, ‘Quick grab him’ and half a dozen of them picked me up. At this point there was an issue of soup going on to the Froggies. So they carried me shoulder high down the hill. The French and Germans were pushing us but the blokes said, ‘No he’s sick – he’s wounded’ and they carried me right through the crowd. So we all got some soup.

  It was a genuine relief for Reeves, who might otherwise had been left behind to face execution by the guards. Realizing there was at least some concern among both the French prisoners and the German cooks, Reeves and his new-found mates decided it was worth repeating: ‘We did it three times! One bloke would say, “Hey, little-un, pass out, we’re going to get something to eat.” I never knew the blokes who were carrying me but they kept me alive. Helped me keep going for twenty-one days of marching.’

  He was not alone in his increasing weakness. As the hunger and sickness began to bite, some men were forced to link arms to support each other as they marched. R.P. Evans, a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment, recalled offering assistance to one of the weaker men: ‘A man walking just in front of me collapsed and a German officer was screaming at him and waving his pistol, so I put an arm around the man’s waist and his arm over my shoulders and somehow coaxed him along for two or three miles, until a lorry came along picking up the stragglers. I often wondered what happened to that chap afterwards.’10 He went on to describe the condition of his fellow marchers: ‘The men’s condition was indescribable, and with ten days’ growth of beard, and their faces caked with dust, seamed through with rivulets of sweat, they looked like beings from another world.’11

  This result of using up their reserves of fat became a very noticeable side effect of the long days of arduous marching. In a letter that eventually reached the War Office, one prisoner summed up the misery of the period when he reported: ‘You see we got nothing for the first twelve days, and had to do forced marching right through France and Belgium. I was taken prisoner after a great battle when we were surrounded for two days without water, and only gave up because of the cries of the wounded . . . the first time I had a chance to sit on a hard seat I found I had been living on my hips, then I noticed my breast had gone as flat as a pancake. I had used up all the fat I had . . . so I’m now just gristle and bone, but as hard as iron.’12

  While the physical effect of the incessant marching was shown on their bodies, the deprivations of the march also became evident in their clothing. Nights spent sleeping in the open soaked their dirt-encrusted woollen battledress with dew, covered them with mud and grass stains, and introduced the sort of creases that would have once brought any sergeant major screaming down on them. Now no one cared what they looked like. Small rips and tears became gaping holes. Even their boots – that most had hardly ever expected to ‘wear in’ – began to wear out. David Mowatt, having been issued a brand-new pair of double-soled army boots just three weeks before he was captured, found the strain of the daily slog took its toll on the boots. By the time he reached Dortmund he had worn through the soles.

  One of the few positive memories for the marchers was the attitude of the French, Belgian and Dutch women they encountered on their journey. While a minority of civilians attempted to exploit the prisoners, selling food at ludicrously inflated prices to men who had not eaten for days, most were genuine in their efforts to help the marching men. Every man who made the fateful journey that summer can recall the courage of the women who lined up buckets of water for the prisoners to drink from. Even to hear a heavily accented voice call out ‘Good luck!’ was a tonic for the troops, helping to raise their spirits for a few brief minutes. One soldier described the effect of a welcoming Belgian crowd: ‘overwhelming, and it gave us a boost and it encouraged us to straighten up and see it through’.13

  Such was the clamour to come out on to the streets to see and assist the men that in the towns of Béthune and Lille the Germans used mounted military policemen to keep them away from the passing column. Elsewhere guards fired at the feet of civilians attempting to pass food to the starving men. In the pretty spa town of Forges-les-Eaux, the marchers were forced at bayonet point to run through the town at the double, preventing any contact with civilians. A man in the same column reported whips being used on soldiers who had dared to accept food from local children. It seemed there was no end to the vindictiveness of the guards. Passing through one town, Bill Holmes watched as nuns were beaten by German soldiers for daring to throw sticks of rhubarb to the passing soldiers. Elsewhere, British soldiers were lucky to escape with their lives when they attacked a guard who had assaulted a young girl who had passed food to them.

  Despite these displays of viciousness from th
e guards, not all the prisoners were convinced it was entirely their fault that the prisoners were starved during their journey. As Bob Davies explained of his march from Calais to Germany: ‘Initially we were well treated. I think the Germans did not expect to have so many prisoners. Therefore feeding arrangements were non-existent. So as we staggered along the road we had to pick up swedes and potatoes.’ Blaming the collapse of the Allies and the enormous numbers of prisoners for the food shortages was an understandable reaction, one that may have been based in truth, but excuses were irrelevant to the thousands who were starving. The Germans may not have had enough food to provide them with a hot meal each day but it was simply cruel to deprive a man of the chance to accept alms from the villagers who lined the French roads. Every prisoner on the march witnessed women putting out water only to see a guard cycle or walk past, stick out a boot and upend the pail. Eric Reeves recalled the excuses the German guards later gave for their behaviour: ‘We’d been reduced to drinking water from ditches because the Germans were kicking over the buckets. When I complained the guard told me it was because German troops weren’t allowed to drink it unless they’d put purification tablets in it. I thought, that’s a likely tale! The way they kicked it over – it was just spiteful.’

  Wracked by thirst, the soldiers were desperate for a drink. Nobby Barber watched in amazement as the men around him picked dead pigeons out of a trough before dunking their heads in to drink from the foul water. Fellow St Valery prisoner Jim Charters – his mind numbed by exhaustion – recalled pushing lilies from the surface of a pond in order to get a drink. Ken Willats explained how important water became during the long marches along dusty roads: ‘Survival is a very emotive feeling. The progression of need in extreme circumstances is water, food, cigarettes, ladies – in that order. Without being offensive to the ladies, they come a lot further down the list than water.’ This desperate desire to find something to drink even led some prisoners to confront the guards. Jim Pearce looked on, astounded, as one group of prisoners surged towards a well to pull up a bucket of water. When a guard intervened the frustrated prisoners simply pushed him down the well.

  Despite this desperate thirst, some prisoners tried to discourage their mates from drinking stagnant water. Fred Coster was one of them. He had been fortunate enough to begin the march still carrying his emergency ration, which was soon consumed – ‘After all,’ as he pointed out ‘this was an emergency.’ Despite his exhaustion, Coster still remembered some of his training: ‘After 20 or 30kms we’d reach a village with a water butt. After that distance we were all terribly thirsty and the boys would rush to the water butts. I tried to stop them because of my medical training. I told them they’d all get dire diseases. They didn’t listen. But of course they didn’t suffer anything and I missed out because I didn’t get a drink.’

  For those who wouldn’t drink stagnant water, the only relief came from the rain. It may have soaked their already weakened bodies, run down and seeped into their boots, and softened the bare earth they would be sleeping on, but it brought relief to their throats. Marching men lifted their heads upwards, allowing the water to fill their mouths. They cupped their hands in front of their bodies and caught the falling rain, drinking it greedily from their filthy palms. Others dropped to the ground and lowered their faces into puddles, eager to drive away the dry taste of the dust that filled their mouths. Their throats relieved, the soldiers raised their soaking hands and rubbed their faces, washing away the grime acquired in days of marching. As the rain soaked their hair, they ran their fingers through it, rubbing the water into their sweat-stained scalps.

  Among the marching men were some for whom food was more vital than water. Those nursing wounds needed to sustain themselves not just for marching but to ensure their wounds could recover. Without food, open wounds would take longer to heal. Cyril Holness, whose dressings – on wounds he thought would get him sent home – had been torn off by Germans who had appeared in the field dressing station, was one of those who had no choice but to find food wherever he could:

  It was a tough old business, but you could still see the funny side sometimes. I was wearing a French jacket and trousers that I’d been given after leaving the aid post. As we went through Lille the women were raiding the pubs and cafes. We were calling out ‘Du pain! Du pain!’ One woman came out with one of those long loaves, she undone my trousers and stuck the bread down my legs. They were telling us they’d rather we had it than the Germans get it. And there was a Scots bloke, he was as high as a kite – drunk on what they’d given him. Then these nuns – Sisters of Mercy – gave us socks and boots and cleaned our feet.

  On the occasions that the local population were able to pass food to the prisoners their desperation was such that the prisoners often fought to guarantee a share for themselves. Bill Bampton, a soldier serving with the East Surrey Regiment, recorded how his mate received a package from a civilian: ‘Suddenly he disappeared under the weight of other marchers all intent on having a part of the package. Charlie eventually reappeared, still clutching a handful of crumbs and a scrap of a paper bag.’14

  For Jim Charters and his brother Jack, the assistance of one woman would bring far greater relief than they would realize for some time. Passing though one French village they handed over a hastily scribbled note to one of the women waiting by the roadside. On a page torn from a paybook, they had written their names and the address of their parents back in Ashington, Northumberland. It was dangerous for the women to have any contact with the prisoners; indeed some men later recalled seeing civilians forced to join the marching columns for having dared to feed or talk to the prisoners. For Jim Charters, the bravery of such women helped revise his thoughts about their French hosts. As he watched them being pushed, kicked and hit with rifle-butts he could not but admire the fact that they still tried to assist the prisoners. As Norman Barnett remembered it: ‘The Frenchwomen had guts – not like their menfolk!’

  Of course, not all of the French civilians were charitable to the British prisoners. Dick Taylor, marching away from St Valery, remembered: ‘In some places French farmers stood there with shotguns to make sure their potato and turnip piles weren’t pillaged.’ The sight of farmers with shotguns was enough to deter even the most desperate of men. Yet in some cases opposition from the locals made little difference. Passing through a French village, Gordon Barber, who was no stranger to using his fists when necessary, found a butcher’s shop: ‘I had a few francs so I went in this little shop and saw this piece of meat hanging on a hook. I said, “How much?” He said, “No, no, no.” So I slapped the coin on the counter, ripped the meat off the hook, right handed him – smacked him out of the way a bit sharpish – but he didn’t go down. And I ran back into the crowd.’

  The behaviour of the shotgun-wielding French farmers and defensive shopkeepers was a reflection of the relationship between many of the British prisoners and their French counterparts. There was certainly little love lost between the two factions. The efforts of the Germans to engender antagonism between the remnants of the defeated armies were helped by a mistrust that already existed among some of the troops. After a failed escape, Sergeant Stephen Houthakker was transported to Cambrai, where he was held amid hordes of French colonial troops. When he later wrote of his experiences he did not bother to conceal his contempt: ‘To my sorrow found myself thrown in with some of the most degraded and filthy men it has ever been my lot to meet. French Moroccans, Senegalese, Arabs, the scum of the world, members of the infamous Foreign Legion, tough men each and every one of them. Comforts of life and ordinary hygiene were as foreign to them as was fighting and honour.’15 As a professional soldier schooled in the proudest traditions of the British Army, he could not reconcile military life with what he saw before him: ‘In this hell I spent the two worst weeks of my existence. Lousy, hungry, depressed, but practising to the full the survival of the fittest theory.’16

  Not all the British had such a low opinion of their allies. It was easy
for both factions to blame each other – the British criticizing French fighting abilities and the poor showing of the French High Command, the French cursing the British for heading back to the Channel coast and abandoning their allies to certain defeat. Yet some of the defeated armies were able to view the débâcle from a wider perspective. At St Valery John Christie joined a group of drunken Frenchmen. Christie was no more impressed with the Frenchmen than he was with the antics of some of the British, such as the officers who had changed into their best uniforms ready to surrender with honour. The Frenchmen offered him cognac, which he shared: ‘I was duty bound to accept a swig to help maintain the very shaky entente cordiale. Don’t get me wrong, I could see things from their side, it was one thing to fight and die for “La Patrie”, quite another to die covering for us so that we could get off the hook.’17

  Despite Christie’s thoughtful assessment of the situation, there were very real reasons for the British prisoners to feel a genuine antipathy towards their allies. As the United Nations later reported: ‘The fact that French prisoners of war, in much larger numbers, were comparatively well provided with food . . . tends to prove that the virtual starvation of British prisoners of war and the inadequate arrangements for their accommodation was deliberate.’18

  It was an accurate assessment of the situation. Although there were genuine moments of kindness, such as when a German guard forced French soldiers to share their wine with British soldiers, most of the time the British faced appalling discrimination. While the Germans kicked over buckets and beat back Frenchwomen attempting to feed the British, they allowed the French troops to accept gifts from the villagers. The story was replicated throughout the march. One group, who had begun their march in Calais, finished their first day’s march in a stadium full of French and Belgian troops. They remained there for just one hour, then left again without being given any food. The following day, still unfed, they marched past their allies as they ate a meal of macaroni and army biscuits. It may have not been the most enticing of meals, but to the watching Britons it seemed like a feast – one to which they had not been invited. This became the pattern of treatment as experienced by the majority of marchers. The French received their rations first while the British were thrown the scraps.