Dunkirk 1940
Page 9
Even as the West Yorkshires finally heard what was happening, Donald Edgar and his battalion were already on their way to France with the rest of 12th Division. As dawn broke on the 21st, Edgar, still hungover from a riotous farewell party at a local restaurant, led Headquarters Company of the 2/6th East Surreys as they marched through empty streets to the nearby railway station to begin the journey. ‘The locals knew we were off to France. But no-one seemed to care.’14 By that afternoon, the battalion was aboard the SS Ulster Prince and already putting to sea, a lone army chaplain standing on the quay to wave them farewell.
Others had a different send off. James Laidler of 23rd Division’s 1st Tyneside Scottish recalls leaving Gateshead for France on the evening of 23 April. ‘We went through the town in great style with pipes playing. Although the move was supposed to be secret, the streets were thronged with people. They gave us a terrific send off.’15 Confined to barracks as part of the recruit company, Laidler was ready to go. Alan Forster, another member of the battalion recalled that:
The Battalion left its HQ in Gateshead for Southampton on the 23 April 1940 and embarked for Le Havre with so little notice one soldier was in the cinema with his girl friend when the film was interrupted with an announcement that his unit was to go to the docks. He had to change out of civvies and into his uniform whilst crossing the channel.16
Troops of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment practise entraining.
Across the country, a select few drove in convoys of trucks as they made their way to departure ports on a journey of up to eighteen hours at the stately prescribed pace of 20mph with a density of no more than 20 vehicles to the mile, ready to join up with their battalions somewhere on the other side of the Channel. The rest of the men would follow a few days later by rail and with the attention to detail that marks the British Army, some units even used the intervening period to practise getting to the local station. Arnold Straw, still with the 2/7th DWR, recalls being marched in a column to the station where a train stood by so that they could be timed getting on board as quickly and smoothly as possible. Time and again, they were given the order to embark as the commanding officer stood by with a stopwatch. Finally, he was satisfied that his men could quickly board their train in a dignified, military fashion.
Throughout that week, the last units of the three divisions made ready to leave with another round of meter reading and coal measuring. With security still a confusing problem, commanders chose for themselves how to deal with their leaving. On the evening of the 25th, C Company of the 2/6th DWR were treated to a trip to the local cinema and a dance for friends and family at the Co-Operative Hall in Skipton. A few miles away in Huddersfield, Straw and his comrades in their sister battalion were only finally told on the 26th that they would leave the following day but that ‘on no account must we divulge this information to anyone else on the grounds of security’ – promptly ensuring that as the battalion marched through Huddersfield the next day with colours flying and the band playing, thousands of well wishers lined the route. At the station, the carefully rehearsed boarding procedure fell apart as relatives and girlfriends crowded the platform to say goodbye. With no-one there to say goodbye to, Straw gleefully bagged the most comfortable seat and settled into his compartment.
Sir Cyril Deverell (front row, centre) with officers of the West Yorkshire Regiment just before embarkation.
A TA battalion prepares to move overseas. Note the 1918 pattern uniforms.
The Dukes and the West Yorkshire Regiment of 137 Brigade were the last elements of the digging divisions to set out, leaving their home towns late in the evening of the 27th for the overnight journey to Southampton. Even as they began to gather at their designated departure points in their scattered billets, the KOYLIs of 138 Brigade were already arriving at Cherbourg. Early that morning, on board the Isle of Man steam packet Tynwald, Rex Flowers and his mates lined the rails for their first glimpse of a foreign country as France came into view through the morning mist. Like many aboard, this was his first trip overseas and indeed his first long journey of any kind so he was disappointed to see not some bustling exotic harbour but a drab port very similar to the one he had just left. Although his first real culture shock was not far away. At 0830hrs the ship docked and the battalion disembarked to march to a waiting train of cattle trucks bearing the sign ‘40 hommes, 8 chevaux’ so familiar to the men of the previous generation. Fully expecting civilian railway carriages like those used to get the battalion to Southampton, Flowers was shocked. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes!’ he wrote later:
How primitive this sort of thing was, but I was to learn a lot more before it was over. It was a different world altogether. As we came up to these monstrosities I thought ‘Bloody charming’ … We entrained, at least someone decreed that we had less than 40 men, but it was still crowded … We sorted ourselves out reasonably and as we proceeded, some of us sat in the doorways with legs dangling. So we travelled down the Cotentin peninsula at a snail’s pace. At least we had time to enjoy the pleasant rural scenery. Women came up to the train with bread. It was another first, my introduction to a yard of bread. I have loved it ever since, no one makes this kind of bread like the French. The train was so slow that men jumped off, bought some bread, then ran and caught the train easily.17
Arriving at a small station, the battalion detrained, formed up and set off on foot to a camp about a mile outside the village of Montreuil:
It was a new ready-made camp, composed of wooden huts, cookhouse, dining rooms. We could not believe our luck, after Dewsbury and Wakefield, to us it was the lap of luxury. We were detailed off in platoons and companies, each to our areas and huts. After being allotted our huts, we dismissed and entered them. We had a proper bed each! Not bad! We looked around; the scenery was very nice, fields, woods and lakes. Each field was divided by a hedge on top of a bank of earth. We were in what is known as the Forêt de Tanouarn, not far from Rennes in Brittany. I liked the camp, we all did, it was brand new and we made the best of what was available. I can see the hut that I was in my mind’s eye now, at the edge of the camp, near to a small stream. The weather was hot and sunny, the food was not bad, and we worked hard. I thought, I can spend the summer here. It was all too good to be true!
As Flowers continued on his journey, His Majesty’s Transport Tynwald had returned to Southampton and stood waiting to receive the West Yorkshires. Nearby, another Isle of Man steam packet and the London and North Eastern Railways Ferry Bruges stood by to transport the Dukes as they arrived at the docks at 0600hrs on the 28th. Field Marshal Sir Cyril Deverell, Colonel in Chief of the West Yorkshires, arrived to wish them well and spent time talking to Brigadier Gawthorpe on the quayside. ‘He was as surprised as I was’ Gawthorpe wrote later, ‘when another unit arrived subsequently and all the officers appeared in best Service Dress, Sam Browne belts and all, with their battle dress presumably packed as baggage. Theirs was a truly swell departure but, I say again, surprising.’18 It was not the only surprise the Dukes had up their sleeves. Arriving at around 0700hrs, the 2/7th DWR had loaded its baggage and troops by 1000hrs and found they had the ship to themselves, allowing considerably more comfort than most other units enjoyed. Having taken their drums and instruments with them, Bandmaster W.E. Doyle gathered his men together. ‘It was a decided comfort to us,’ the war diary recorded:
SS Tynwald. The Isle of Man steam packet Tynwald was used to ferry troops across to France in the early stages of the war. Later, many of her crew refused to return to Dunkirk after coming under attack. Afterwards taken up by the Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft ship, she struck a mine off North Africa and sank on 12 November 1942.
A British unit arriving in Cherbourg.
Cartoon from the DWR Journal Iron Duke 1940.
Firstly it gave us a few selections to while away the tedium of waiting for the Trooper so leave the dockside. It was at the actual moment of leaving the dock that it surpassed itself. We drew away from England to the strains of ‘Land of Ho
pe and Glory’ which seemed to give all of us thrill of pride in England and a stiffening of our purpose and resolution. To the docks and its dockers the sight of Troopers leaving England has no doubt become merely commonplace but the band seemed to draw them from their tasks and one assuredly felt that they shared our emotions as they waved us a safe crossing and safe return.19
Although they were on their way, the ships sat in Southampton Water for the afternoon, waiting for darkness and their destroyer escorts before they could begin the crossing – due to begin at 0130hrs. The men whiled away the hours watching flying boats take off and land and enjoying the excitement and novelty of their first foreign trip. Despite problems, the fact that they had the ship to themselves also meant they were able to prepare a hot meal on board. That evening, the Dukes’ band formed the core of an impromptu concert and even the threat of U-Boat attack did little to sour the atmosphere of a group of young Territorials off to summer camp.
It was a marked contrast to the way most soldiers had experienced the crossing. Aboard the Tynwald on the previous trip, Don Clark of the KOYLI estimated that 2,000 men had been crammed aboard and the ship was so full that he and around 100 others had volunteered to travel aboard the naval escorts.
As the evening drew in, Clark suddenly heard sirens all around him as the ship came to action stations and launched a barrage of depth charges against a suspected submarine. These first few minutes of wartime action thrilled him and he was still excited the next morning when the convoy reached harbour.
For 137 Brigade, the crossing was uneventful and they woke next morning to find a solitary French seaplane escorting them on the final leg of their journey. Bandmaster Doyle immediately got his band together for a reprise of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and as a salute to their new allies, ‘La Marseillaise’. Whatever they were expecting, the war diary of the 2/6th Dukes recorded almost with disappointment that the ‘civil population in Cherbourg received the battalion with calm. There were no demonstrations.’20 After a hot breakfast and with around six hours before their train was due to depart, the men were told they would be provided with a hot meal at noon and allowed the morning to go into the town. The regimental history records of the 2/6th that ‘high tribute must be paid to the splendid character and bearing of the troops during their service in France. The only serious crime occurred at Cherbourg. On arrival a soldier was arrested for sending an uncensored letter in the civil post.’21 When Don Clark had arrived the day before, his group had the whole day to spend in the town before their train and recalled that the older soldiers headed off to the local brothels whilst the younger men sent postcards home before visiting the local bars where they soon became involved in a street battle between a party of Highlanders in kilts, French sailors apparently intent on finding out what was worn underneath and the combined force of the military police of both nations. As Clark made good his escape, thunderflashes were being let off as the fight escalated.22 The good character of the men of 137 Brigade may have owed something to the presence of large numbers of annoyed policemen roaming the town.
‘40 Hommes, 8 chevaux.’ The novelty of travelling by cattle truck soon wore off.
Movements staff at Cherbourg now issued the brigade with their orders. At 1406hrs, Brigade HQ, 2/5th West Yorkshires and 2/7th DWR would depart by train for Blain, a village about 20 miles northwest of the port of Nantes, and would arrive at 0830hrs – a journey of over eighteen hours aboard cramped cattle trucks with only a packet of sandwiches and a blanket for comfort. If the journey was uncomfortable for those in the trucks, the men assigned to act as anti-aircraft defence had it even worse in shallow trucks mounted with a Bren gun and spread along the length of the train. Open to both the elements and the smoke from the engines, which, the West Yorkshires’ unofficial diarist reported, ‘slowly transfigured the unfortunates concerned into a fair semblance of particularly insanitary chimney sweeps’ they faced a gruelling trip, as did the unlucky men allocated trucks that had recently been used for carrying coal who ‘expressed the view that they would have appreciated a little more of the previous cargo having first been removed’. After a journey through Bayeux, Caen, Le Mans and Angers, the men ‘tumbled, unshaven and stiff … onto the lineside’ at Blain. Here, the 2/5th were to part from the Dukes to begin training in the grounds of the nearby chateau. The 2/6th DWR had set out separately for Nantes and the 2/7th were now destined for dockyard work at St Nazaire. ‘We were shocked to receive the rumour that we still had to face a five-mile march to our quarters; but as it turned out this was probably only started by an enemy agent in the hope of lowering our morale, for we were presently relieved to see our long lost Transport Officer bustling down the train to guide us to our own trucks in the village.’
The DWR in St Nazaire.
The DWR arrive at St Nazaire, as reported in the local press.
Arriving at their newly built camp in the grounds of the Chateau Pont Pretain in the warm glow of a Loire afternoon, the discomfort of the journey was soon forgotten. A summer of hard work and training would be interspersed with time off in the local towns and villages. As the brigade began its journey, the government had announced that the price of a pint of beer would rise by 2d, instead of the expected 1d. Here, French beer cost just 4d a litre. For the West Yorkshires, at least, ‘we came to the entire agreement that this was, after all, the life’.23
NOTES
1 Beauman, Brigadier A.B. Then A Soldier London: Macmillan 1960 pp96–7
2 Ibid p101
3 Ibid p101
4 Ibid p105
5 Ibid p104
6 WO167/853
7 The Iron Duke the magazine of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding) VolXVI No 45 Feb 1940 p5
8 Rex Flowers. Unpublished memoir.
9 WO 167/853
10 WO167/736
11 Edgar, D. The Day of Reckoning London: John Clare Books p37
12 WO167/853
13 Ibid
14 Edgar Op cit p40
15 Laidler, J.C. A Slice of my Life privately produced memoir held at Wakefield Local Studies Library
16 Alan Forster (4459370 Pte. A. Forster) account produced by his nephew, Mr Bill Forster and accessed at www.wwiimemories.com/alanfoster.htm
17 Flowers, op cit
18 Gawthorpe, Brigadier J.B. ‘137 Infantry Brigade: A formation of the TA in the first year of war’ In West Yorkshire Regimental Journal Ca Ira Vol XII June 1948 p22319 WO167/737
20 Ibid
21 Barclay, Brigadier C.N. The History of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment 1919–1952 London: Wm Clowes & Son 1953 p198
22 Clark, D. A Personal History of the 1940 Normandy Campaign Imperial War Museum document 99/16/1
23 WO 167/853
Chapter Five
Seeing the Wood for the Trees
By the time the men of 137 Brigade arrived, the Lines of Communication (L of C) in France were vast, firmly established and yet still growing. Ports and depots across the country acted as tributaries to feed men, stores and equipment into the steady stream heading north to the Belgian border but each port needed men to load and guard supplies and each new depot needed labourers to build it and still more men to run it. Convinced that the lack of movement by the Germans proved this would be another war of stalemate, Churchill himself had insisted on the despatch of three super-heavy artillery batteries whose immobile guns had to be installed in concrete emplacements served by their own light railway to bring up ammunition, adding a further burden to the already controversially overdue effort to complete the British defence line. In any modern army, the logistics ‘tail’ far outnumbers the combatant ‘teeth’ arms but the number of depots grew in order to stockpile supplies for a long war and the roads and rail links serving them had to be expanded, requiring ever more troops to be diverted from front line duties. The logistics tail was beginning to wag the dog.
Winston Spencer Churchill. Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May after Lord Halifax declined the position.
General Viscount Gort VC. Acknowledged as a brave soldier in the First World War, even his admirers regarded him as a poor strategist unable to meet the demands of commanding the BEF. His appointment owed much to the deep animosity between Gort and Hore-Belisha and was a means of getting him out of Whitehall.
So great was the belief that the Germans would be held in a stalemate along the Franco-Belgian border that despite having time to consider and issue instructions regarding the correct shoulder from which to hang a helmet, Gort does not appear to have given any thought to the need for any protection of the supply lines in the event of a German breakthrough. General Ironside, as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, had witnessed German manoeuvres in 1937 and had been greatly impressed by their emphasis on mobility and air power. Accordingly, before Gort and Dill left on 10 September, Ironside met with them: