Dunkirk 1940

by Tim Lynch

  Even before Beauman had been briefed, orders had already gone out on the 14th to the units of the 12th, 23rd and 46th Divisions to make ready to move, although where and why remained unclear. Curtis’ wildly optimistic claim that his men were ready showed just how out of touch with his command he had become. The War Establishment of an infantry battalion had been set at 21 officers and 752 other ranks with 50 Bren guns, 22 Boys Anti-Tank rifles, 12 2-inch and 2 3-inch mortars. None of the digging divisions came close to these numbers. Among the battalions of 137 Brigade, for example, the West Yorkshires numbered 26 officers and 562 other ranks.9 They were equipped with a rifle and bayonet per man, 10 Bren guns and 11 Boys rifles but no mortars of any kind. The story was repeated in other brigades. When the 2/6th East Surreys received orders to move to join the 51st Highland Division in the Saar for work behind the lines, frantic scrounging by the Quartermaster produced a total of 20 Bren guns with 500 rounds per gun. Without any support from either divisional HQ or HQ L of C, the best he could manage was just twelve rounds of ammunition for each of the eight Boys rifles the battalion now held. Maps, compasses, binoculars, grenades, revolvers and other vital equipment were non-existent. By now, though, they were all that stood between the Germans and the complete destruction of the Allied armies in Belgium.

  Although farthest from the front, it seems Curtis’s claims had been taken at face value. The first members of the digging divisions to be called forward were HQ 46th Division and 138 and 139 Brigades from the Rennes area. Leaving behind 138 Brigade’s 2/4th KOYLI to follow on later, the two brigades entrained for Seclin on the 15th expecting to be put to work in the rear areas of the BEF to free up refugee traffic; but after a full day’s train journey, the brigades arrived to find their orders had changed. They were now to become the front line as part of ‘Macforce’, an improvised formation formed by Gort under the command of his Director of Intelligence, Major-General Mason-Macfarlane to protect the right rear flank of the BEF. After a chaotic advance, they took up positions along the river Scarpe on the 20th only to find that the river was less of a barrier than they had hoped – the water was found to be just 2 feet 6 inches deep.10

  In accordance with Plan ‘D’, HQ L of C began their move forward from Le Mans on the 16th, heading for Mantes on the river Seine but arrived to news of the German breakthrough and little information about whether the advance had been stopped. Unwilling to risk further disruption if the Germans continued their advance, de Fonblanque chose instead to cancel the move and recall his staff to Le Mans. At the same time, demands were coming in that as much of 12th Division as possible be made mobile and sent to GHQ. For the time being, after consultation with the divisional commander, Major-General Roderick Petre, it was agreed that one brigade should be made mobile and sent to the Serquex area whilst the remainder of the division travel to Abbeville by train.11

  Next to move were elements of 23rd Division from their positions around St Pol. On the 13th, 10th Battalion Durham Light Infantry (10DLI) of 70 Brigade, 23rd Division had received orders to head south to guard airfields around Abbeville. So short of transport were they that it took the combined transport of the entire division to move them by road where, for three days before they handed over to 12th Division and returned to Nuncq, ‘little of moment took place beyond parachutist scares, the local French Headquarters in Abbeville having apparently got parachutists on the brain.'12 As they returned to the division on the 17th, a request arrived at ‘Brassard’ – the British Rear HQ at Arras – from the French commander-in-chief, General Georges, asking for the division to take up position along the line of the Canal du Nord south of Arleux.

  Oddly, given that Churchill himself was aware of the true situation almost 48 hours earlier, this came as a shock to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bridgeman, then in command of the depleted HQ. London had not bothered to pass the information on and Brassard had comfortably assumed that the area was under French control. Only now did Bridgeman order an ‘intelligence appreciation’. It took just twenty minutes for what he later called the full ‘horror of the situation’ to become clear.13 Out of his depth, Bridgeman contacted Gort’s forward HQ. On the orders of Gort’s Adjutant General, Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Brownrigg, Petre was urgently summoned to Arras from Abbeville on the 18th and handed responsibility for the area’s defence with another of the composite forces that were springing up. It was, noted Petre, ‘difficult to understand clearly the composition of this force’.14 As best he could understand it, ‘Petreforce’ would comprise the 23rd Division, 36 Brigade of Petre’s own division and the Arras garrison made up of the 1st Welsh Guards, the veteran 9th West Yorks and a variety of support units, few of which he would be able to contact directly as none had radios and most would be some distance from his HQ. In the panic and confusion infecting Brassard by now, no-one thought it necessary to inform 12th Division HQ that Petre would not be returning from what he had assumed when he left was a routine briefing. For the next two days, all coordinated command of the entire division was lost.

  A Boys Anti-Tank rifleman.

  The British Vickers Light Tank Mk VI, armed only with a machine gun. These tanks were not intended for the assault role the French demanded of them.

  In response to Georges’ request, the 23rd Division under Brigadier Kirkup began their move on the 17th. The division comprised the 69th Brigade of the East Yorkshires and Green Howards and 70th Brigade with the 10th and 11th DLI along with their former 12th battalion now re-designated as 1st Tyneside Scottish (1TS) but instead of a third brigade, the division also included two battalions of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers – the 8th RNF as a motorcycle equipped unit and the 9th as a machine-gun battalion – although before their arrival in France this latter had not even seen a British machine-gun and had trained on two captured German guns from 1918 from the regimental museum.

  As directed, 69 Brigade deployed along the line of the river Scarpe whilst 70 Brigade, after fighting their way through crowds of refugees, finally reached the Canal du Nord. It had not been an easy journey; the roads were so densely packed with refugees that at times the convoy had to drive across country. For the Tyneside Scottish, whose transport consisted of two 30 cwt, seven 15 cwt and one 8 cwt trucks and ‘a motorcycle of uncertain temper’,15 the move had been even further delayed by a wait for commandeered civilian transport which, when it finally arrived, included a bus whose bronze plaque proclaimed it to have been used to transport the French Army to the Marne in 1914. The CO and a recce party having taken one of only two maps available, 2/Lt Cohen, the battalion’s intelligence officer performed a near miracle in keeping the convoy together and reaching the canal by 0300hrs on the 18th.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Swinburne, commanding 1TS, now faced a daunting task. Military doctrine of the day held that a fully armed and supported division could be expected to hold no more than about 4 miles of front. With around fourteen Bren guns, eight Boys rifles and a few 2-inch mortars per battalion, the division could call on the support of no more than a dozen guns, most of which had no sights and could only fire at targets they could see. There were no anti-tank guns of any kind beyond the Boys rifles. With these meagre resources, the Tynesiders alone were to cover a front of around 10 miles from Berthincourt to the Cambrai–Baupame road.16 For Company Sergeant Major Baggs of 1TS, his new position near the village of Hermies was only too familiar; he had fought there in March 1918 during the great German offensive as had Brigadier Kirkup. History, it seemed, was repeating itself.

  The canal they found would not prove much of a barrier. Dry in places, its banks crumbling, there were more potential crossing points than Swinburne’s 660 men could adequately cover and so ‘C’ Company of the reserve 10th DLI was placed under his command. A consignment of Lewis guns had just reached them to bolster their firepower but few among them had any training and scratch teams had to be put together to undergo a rapid course from the older NCOs. With no hard facts to work on information came in drips from retreating French troops
and from refugees but as the sense of panic among the fleeing civilians grew, rumours of saboteurs, enemy agents and disguised parachutists became ever more rampant and the response to any suspect activity increasingly harsh. On the 19th, CSM Baggs recalled, an alleged spy was brought before Colonel Swinburne and their French liaison officer. Without ceremony or trial, the man was taken out and shot by Provost Sergeant Dick Chambers, one of hundreds of French and Belgian civilians who would die on often the flimsiest of evidence in the coming weeks.17

  A few battalions, among them 23rd Division’s 8th Royal Northumbrian Fusiliers, were equipped as reconnaissance troops and mounted on motorcycles. The role was abandoned after the fall of France.

  Swinburne was in no mood to take chances. Earlier that afternoon, where the canal formed at least some form of obstacle, he had ordered the bridges blown and found one remaining. An engineer had prepared the bridge but it was crowded with refugees and clearly distressed, requested a couple of men be sent across to stop the traffic. Swinburne refused, ‘whereupon he burst into tears (he was very young and junior), much to my horror, and I had to push down the plunger myself, much as I hated to do it with people still on the bridge. But orders are orders, and sentiment comes nowhere in war.’18

  Despite the constant air activity around them and the sight of dead civilians on the roadsides after raids, for the young men of Recruit Company the war was still a strange adventure. ‘Smithy’, the awkward young recruit who had joined with James Laidler a few weeks earlier, was intrigued by a large metal object he found after an attack by Stukas. Proudly carrying it to his officer, he declared; ‘Look what I’ve found, Sir.’ As everyone around dived for cover, he was told in no uncertain terms to get rid of it. Calmly, Smithy turned and threw the unexploded bomb over the canal bank. Later, he was found walking around without his helmet or rifle and asked by his officer what he would do if he was suddenly faced with a German: ‘Kick him in the privates with me clems [boots].’19 Bemused, the officer let him on his way. Unknown to any of them, Smithy had less than a day left to live.20

  Meanwhile, 7 RWK had travelled to Doullens and from there had been ordered to Clery-sur-Somme to block the road to Peronne, arriving in the early morning of the 18th despite confusion on the roads that had intermingled 7 RWK’s vehicles with those of other units. The sense of confusion was not helped, Captain Newbury noted, by the fact that ‘information was practically non-existent and even the direction of the enemy was vague’.21 That day was spent blowing all bridges in the area except the canal bridge on the main Clery–Peronne road. One bridge at Allaines to the north had not been completely destroyed and a road block had been established to defend it. At 1000hrs, a truck carrying another 35 Bren guns and fifteen ATRs arrived from GHQ stores still packed in grease as increasing air activity signalled the approach of the Germans. An air attack was beaten off by RAF fighters during the afternoon and first contact with enemy ground forces for the digging divisions came at around 1730hrs when Captain Gibbs of ‘C’ Company came under fire about 1.5 miles east of the town. By 1900hrs, tanks and motorcycle troops could be seen approaching and they were engaged by the four field guns. As the Germans pushed forward, a motorcyclist was killed at a road block on the Albert road but was closely followed by three tanks who began to spray the area with machine-gun fire. A volley of return fire from the Boys rifles had little effect – it emerged that they had been provided half charged training ammunition by mistake22 – but good work by Sergeant Drummond with the battalion’s only 3-inch mortar appeared to set one tank alight and the others withdrew, seemingly facing heavier opposition than expected. At 2030hrs reports circulated of a drop by ten parachutists but no further attack came that night, although aircraft dropped flares at regular intervals. ‘We had evidently held up the advance’ noted a satisfied War Diarist.23

  By now, Petre had decided not to leave his force exposed in isolated pockets but to bring them back to a position along the La Bassee Canal north of Arras where the German offensive of 1918 had run out of steam. Orders went out to try to fall the units back into a coherent line. For 7RWK, the next day remained relatively quiet as they began to consolidate their position. Realising that the battalion was in an isolated position, Petre considered moving them back to link with the flank of 70 Brigade in place of the promised French forces which had failed to materialise but decided that ‘in view of the unsatisfactory nature of the CANAL DU NORD this would merely be putting further unsuitable troops into danger’.24 Instead, the battalion was ordered to withdraw to Albert and turn it into an anti-tank locality. This would involve their taking up position in buildings at the far side of a built-up area so that the Germans would be channelled into streets and unable to make use of artillery and air support for fear of hitting their own men. Still with a pre-war mentality, many commanders found it difficult to bring themselves to destroy private property and the tactic was not popular but in Albert it was also unsuitable. The river was found to be a dry ditch and ‘subterranean in town’. Instead, Lieutenant-Colonel Clay was given permission to withdraw farther to make use of high ground outside the town on the road to Doullens. He chose this option, arriving safely by 0600hrs on the 19th. Then, at 0130hrs on the morning of the 20th, they were ordered back to Albert. In six hours time, they would be destroyed.

  The yawning gap between 7 RWK and the right of 70 Brigade had been occupied during the 18th by their former comrades in 36 Brigade, 6 RWK and 5 Buffs under Brigadier Roupell VC. They, along with the rest of 12th Division, had been ordered to Abbeville on the 17th with 36 Brigade travelling in trucks as part of the L of C mobile reserve whilst 35 and 37 Brigade entrained. Because of the difficulty in arranging transport and moving it through the already congested routes, it was not until the following day that the division were at last fully able to move. Even as they prepared for the trip to Abbeville, new orders placed 36 Brigade under GHQ and directed them to Doullens to await further instructions, the two battalions finally setting out at 2230hrs. On arrival, the battalions found a deserted town. Major Arthur ‘Tim’ West of the Buffs would later recall finding meals on tables and fires still lit as though the whole town was an enormous Marie Celeste. With just four Bren guns per company and fourteen Boys rifles in the entire battalion, the men set about building road blocks and worked under the impression that a few tanks had broken through but not in any real force, pausing only to watch the flow of retreating French troops pass through the town. They began to dig in on the Doullens–Arras road towards the village of Saulty with the town now forming the right flank of a ten-mile front held by the RWK, with the Buffs holding another 6 miles on their left. According to the latest reports from Arras, the 23-mile gap between their left flank and the right of 23rd Division was held by French forces. The reports were wrong. Nothing stood in the way of complete encirclement. That night a communion service was held in a cafe for the few men able to attend.

  Behind them, the remainder of 12th Division was in chaos. With the 2/6th East Surreys detached for duties around Le Havre, 37 Brigade’s remaining battalions, 6th and 7th Royal Sussex Regiment, had been warned off for a move to Abbeville ‘to check any wandering German units which had broken through’ and were to ‘hold a hollow square position with 7RS on the right.’ As they prepared to move, each man had 50 rounds of ammunition and the battalion held 12 Bren guns, each with 12 filled magazines, 4 Boys rifles and 4 2-inch mortars without sights. Few believed they were going to war and ‘a number were under the impression they were going on a scheme’.25 After the inevitable delays the train carrying the 7th RS, members of a Field Ambulance and a group of engineers set out at 0430hrs on 18 May. Without warning, the train was redirected by GHQ and at around 0800hrs the men learned they were now headed for Amiens, but not why. Unknown to the battalion – or indeed to its motor transport still heading for the original rendezvous – it was now en route to Lens.

  Passing through Abancourt, the train passed that containing their sister battalion who had set off earlier but had
been held up by a derailment. The 7th, now travelling on the adjacent track, continued past. Noticing that the other train had mounted Bren guns to provide anti-aircraft protection, Lieutenant-Colonel Gethen of the 7th now ordered his men to do likewise. As the ‘beautiful hot summer’s day’ wore on, most of the men had taken the opportunity to take off their boots and were dozing as the train approached Amiens that afternoon. Then, at about 1515hrs, a large explosion rocked the train. Hastily detraining and scrambling into cover, the men watched as an air raid struck the station of St Roche just outside Amiens itself. Sergeant Glover and Private Sexton, manning the AA machine gun, fired back but the damage was already done. The engine was wrecked, the driver killed and the track ahead had been torn up. A bomb had hit the front of the train, causing around 60 casualties, mostly among the battalion’s officers. The Quartermaster and both interpreters were dead and the CO, Adjutant Major Cassels and Medical Officer Captain Mannington were amongst the wounded.26 Behind them, the train carrying the 6th was shunted into a siding where it sat for six hours before continuing on its journey.

  As the raid ended, a party began to retrieve what it could from the wreckage. For the young soldiers, the sight of maimed comrades came as a sudden shock as they watched the wounded being gathered together by the medics aboard. An anti-aircraft gun stood by to give cover if required but when an aircraft appeared the crew were unable to distinguish any markings before another bomb blew them off their feet. As the men dispersed into nearby woods, successive waves of bombs fell all around. That night, Gethen and Cassels ‘kept discussing methods of getting on to Doullens as the railway was u/s [unserviceable]’.