Dunkirk 1940

by Tim Lynch

  Fighting in fields of standing corn, the Dukes were by now firing at movements in the crops, ‘the method of shooting rabbits in happier times’, as the Germans approached within 30 yards of their positions, only to be beaten back. As dusk fell, the fighting slowed. Casualties were evacuated two at a time on stretchers aboard the single small truck the Dukes had with them. Overnight, patrols were mounted to try to prevent more enemy machine gun teams getting across the river. ‘C’ Company, outflanked on both sides, pulled back three-quarters of a mile to the Heudebouville–St Cyr road but any attempt to get a runner to Battalion HQ was met with a hail of gunfire.

  By 0300hrs, the position of No19 Platoon was becoming precarious and in desperation, Llewellyn decided that he had to attempt to contact Watteau, setting out by truck along the road running parallel to the river. After a few miles, near Louviers, he met with a British brigadier with a small force of light tanks who promised to do what he could. Pressing on, he finally found Colonel Watteau who blithely told him that whilst Llewellyn might think his battalion was there, as commander of that sector he could assure him that there were no Allied troops in the Heudebouville area and, furthermore, that the road Llewellyn had just used was impassable because the Germans had already cut it. Realising just how out of touch Watteau had become, Llewellyn went back to his battalion.

  As the morning wore on, ‘C’ Company began its withdrawal in contact so close that its rearguard and the advancing Germans were firing at each other from opposite sides of a crossroads. Suddenly, the British tanks Llewellyn had met earlier ‘like a Buffalo Bill story of Wild West rescue, appeared near the positions occupied by HQ Company and immediately went into action.’15 They were followed at around 1400hrs by the arrival of nine tanks of the 10th Hussars which meant that apart from the endangered ‘C’ Company positions, the Dukes’ line would now hold. But not so the French.

  Abandoned vehicles litter the road to Cherbourg.

  Exhausted troops reach Cherbourg on a commandeered lorry.

  At 1450hrs, Llewellyn contacted General Maillard, who informed him that the French troops were moving south and that the British should rejoin their lines along the river Eure via Acquigny. By luck and good management, contact was broken off by 1700hrs and with HQ Company as rearguard, the battalion marched through the night. Bypassing the bombed Evreux, they found the once beautiful town of Neuberg in a shambles. There were no civilians but the town was crammed with worn-out French troops and a strange, langorous atmosphere hung over it. Leapfrogging using the battalion transport they reached Bernay in the early hours of the 11th. From a packed railway station, trains crammed with refugees were constantly leaving, interspersed with hospital trains full of wounded.

  Behind them, the battle continued. Arriving in Les Andelys from Paris at the end of the month to check on friends in the area, Andre Montier found the town devastated. His friend Hauchard told him how, on the Sunday morning, he and his family had been amongst the last to leave. Packing everything they owned onto their horse-drawn wagon, he, his son-in-law and his eight sons, along with their dogs, had set out only to find the battle already raging around them.

  The bridges were blown and the refugee traffic stacked up as an artillery duel began. The horses, terrified by the noise, bolted and Hauchard was thrown off but managed to find them a short time later, caught in the trees nearby. Others had not been so lucky and at least three people had been killed. Deciding that the risk of being caught on the road was too great, he then found himself looking after around 125 cows and 50 horses in neighbouring farms, ensuring that they were fed and watered over the coming days.

  The battle had been followed by the arrival of the Germans, taking over cottages as billets, sleeping up to six in a room. Pontoon bridges had been thrown across the river and the walls of several gardens had been knocked down to widen the tracks from the riverbank. Then came the bombers. British and French aircraft had tried to hit the bridges and to delay the repairs to the Le Manoir rail bridge. Obsolete Fairey Battles of 88 and 103 Squadrons of the RAF had repeatedly attacked with varying degrees of success. One family had spent twelve days sheltering in their cellar before feeling able to venture out.

  All that was now in the past. As Montier wandered around, he saw German soldiers sunbathing by the water as if on holiday but the peaceful scene jarred with the ruins surrounding him. In the centre of town, he reported that ‘95% of the buildings are destroyed entirely and I could recognise only the shells of the Town Hall and Courts. Nothing at all was left of three solicitors’ offices.’ The cathedral seemed intact but he was told that the vaults had been badly damaged by incendiaries and hand grenades. Every day, they said, bodies were being found in the rubble. Near the station, a Panhard armoured car stood immobile, a huge swastika flag draped over it as a signal to the Luftwaffe. A fire engine stood burned out. On the roads around, he saw signs of battle everywhere:

  At the crossroads on the roads to Villers and Louviers stood a tank, beside it a grave … cases of ammunition stood by a silent gun, military effects lying around as German cars passed by…at the side of the road, evidence of the intense passage, the grass no longer existed and broken branches lay all around. Jars of jam, cigarette packets and boxes of matches lay around and papers were strewn around in the sunshine … Those houses not destroyed had tiles missing and windows shattered by the blasts … On the approaches to the bridge, a burnt out machine gun and another grave, this time that of a young girl … It was very sad, it was total desolation.16

  Glad to be away and settling in a wood in the grounds of the Chateau Bernay, the Dukes rested as Colonel Llewellyn went forward to reconnoitre Beauman Division’s new positions between the Pont d’Ateau and Brionne on the river Risle, staying away until late in the night whilst the men slept out in the open in torrential rain. The next morning, they were visited by the division’s Assistant Director of Medical Services, Colonel Austen Eagger:

  Inspected 2/6 DWR. CO evacuated suffering exhaustion neurosis. 50 cases same, morale very low. Reported and suggested Div taken out before more affected.17

  British trucks aboard an evacuation ship, Cherbourg.

  Outbreaks of scabies and lice were also reported, further adding to the misery of the exhausted men. They were, it was decided, ‘totally unfit for battle for at least three days.’18 Despite this, as they settled down to sleep in barns around the neighbourhood, orders were received to supply five officers and 100 other ranks for a volunteer force under the command of Captain Rostron. Volunteers quickly came forward but no further orders reached them until the afternoon of the 14th when they joined with a similar band of KOYLI volunteers and were sent to Beaumont Le Roger under Major Archdale. Orders to withdraw arrived at 0100hrs on the 15th and the move was scheduled to begin at 0330hrs via Broglie to Lisieux. Fortunately, by this time the German main thrust had turned south towards the Loire and it was relatively easy to pull back, although there were still disquieting moments.

  British evacuation, Cherbourg.

  The rest of the men, only around 300-strong by now, were moved to a rest camp at Sees. Lieutenant Cooper took a truck with 22 wounded men to Le Mans, only to find the hub of the L of C deserted but strangely tidy. Sapper Bill Harvey, one of those evacuating Rennes on the 15th recalled how he and his colleagues opened a NAAFI store and took what they needed but when they pulled out, the stores buildings were neatly locked behind them. Personal items left behind were likewise locked securely away to await the inevitable German plundering. Throwing blankets and food to passing refugees, the base area troops were ordered to head for the ports of Brest, St Malo and Cherbourg, creating huge traffic jams as military police ordered all vehicles to be disabled.19

  The Dukes, uncertain of what was happening, sent a dispatch rider to Divisional HQ only to find it gone ‘without any notification of their whereabouts’. Fortunately, on the 16th, Lieutenant Griffiths arrived with the order to head for either Brest or St Malo. The battalion’s single three-ton truck and its wat
er cart now operated a shuttle, again leapfrogging groups of men forward in a race against time. Information became even harder to find. The battalion were told to go to Redon, only to have the order cancelled immediately and instructions from General Marshall-Cornwall who was now, at last and too late, nominated as commander of ‘Norman Force’, to head directly for the coast. Newly arrived Canadian troops were attempting to hold a defence line across the Cherbourg peninsula but were already pulling back by the hour. The ‘second BEF’ was no sooner in France than it was being forced out again. The 1st Canadian and 52nd Lowland Divisions, together with the Beauman Division, the remnants of the 1st Armoured Division and their French colleagues – an estimated force of around 30,000 evacuated through Cherbourg alone, with over 20,000 through St Malo – were being pushed out of France by a single German division under General Rommel.

  British evacuation, Cherbourg.

  The surrender came on 17 June when the Dukes were three kilometres from the town of Vitre and searching for fuel for their vehicles. On the way they had managed to acquire a few more and were making reasonable progress but Vitre was ‘devoid of all British troops and GHQ had evacuated the day before.’20 As they were gathering what they could, the news came over the French wireless. They then encountered an officer who advised them to get to St Malo, 80 miles away, as quickly as possible. Siphoning fuel from the tanks of three of their vehicles every man crammed aboard the remainder and the trucks raced for the coast. That night, 1,800 men sailed aboard a ship licensed to carry 800. Captain Rostron and his men had reached Cherbourg and the similarly crowded Duke of Argylle. Both reached home the next day.

  The next day, 18 June, and in keeping with the unit’s experiences, rail transport officers directed the battalion’s train to Rotherham, where no-one knew they were coming and so redirected them to Leeds. The 46th Division was supposed to regroup in Manchester.

  NOTES

  1 War Diary 2/6th Duke of Wellington’s regiment. WO167/736

  2 Ibid

  3 Barclay p204

  4 Marshall-Cornwall p144–5. See also Blaxland p364

  5 Report dated 8 June. Beauman Papers

  6 War Diary 2/6th Duke of Wellington’s regiment. WO167/736

  7 Erich Von Manstein in Powell, AG. Lost Victories. Chicago 1958 p140

  8 Barclay p209

  9 Boeselager was killed on the Eastern Front on 27 August 1944. Two days later, he was posthumously promoted to full colonel and awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords — one of only 159 German soldiers so decorated in the history of the award. Later it was revealed that he and his brother had been involved in the July plot to assassinate Hitler and had been marching his troops to Berlin when news of its failure reached him. He was able to disguise the troop movement as a move towards the front and initially avoided suspicion. When investigators later contacted his old unit in France to demand that ‘First Lieutenant von Boeselager’ be detained for questioning, his former comrades recognised the threat and, since he had long been promoted beyond lieutenant rank, replied that they knew no such officer. It seems likely that he chose to die in battle to deny the Nazis the chance to discredit his family.

  10 Account of the river crossing and subsequent action is translated from Oberkommando des Heeres. Tag und Nacht am Feind Gutersloh 1942 p127–132.

  11 Von Manstein, op cit p141

  12 Conclusions. After Action Report by Major-General Beauman, June 1940. Beauman papers.

  13 War Diary 2/6th DWR

  14 Résumé succinct des opérations de la 5e. Brigade de Cavalerie. Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre

  15 Barclay p213

  16 Account translated from http://hvmontier.free.fr/andelys_1940.html

  17 Report of Assistant Director of Medical Services, Beauman Division. WO177/436

  18 Barclay p214

  19 Account accessed at BBC People’s War site www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/17/a4195217.shtml

  20 War Diary 2/6th DWR

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘I was never a boy any more’

  When the KOYLI train stopped outside Abbeville on the afternoon of 20 May, Lieutenant-Colonel Hodgkinson had hoped that he could press on around to the west of the city and still reach St Pol as ordered. Pushing ahead of the main party, Lieutenant Lee and the four men of his recently formed Intelligence Section reconnoitred the route ahead. Don Clark, one of the four, would only retain vague memories of the immediate aftermath of the attack on the train but remembered around 40 KOYLIs spending the night in a field wrapped in their groundsheets and that he and Lieutenant Lee found a French 75mm gun position abandoned ‘like the Marie Celeste’. He would also remember the shock of seeing the endless stream of refugees and his first sight of the enemy approaching in a ‘non-stop stream of tanks, guns and motorised infantry’ he estimated to include well over 2,000 vehicles. Most of all, however, he would remember the feeling of being left behind.

  Soon after crossing the Somme, it became clear to Hodgkinson that trying to advance against the flow of refugees into an uncertain situation was too much of a risk. The battalion was ordered to turn back and he was told that a train would be waiting for them. For some reason, though, Clark’s party had not received the order. Finding themselves alone, Lieutenant Lee paraded the men and told them to make their way towards Dieppe and to keep going until they met anyone collecting stragglers. In the chaos all around them there would be little hope of staying together so each man should keep the sun on his left in the morning and walk towards it in the evening. That way they should at least reach the coast. The remaining food was shared out – some raisins and a few tins of pilchards – and then the men started out.

  Men of the Second BEF embark from the UK aboard a French warship.

  Thousands of men left behind are rounded up.

  Those who had received the order to turn around had made their way back in the darkness across the bridge and turned right onto the tracks, joining the mass of people trudging silently down the line ‘like spectators coming away from a football match’1 carrying whatever they could from their homes. There was no sign of the driver of their engine and no way to contact anyone for help so Colonel Hodgkinson ordered all secret papers to be destroyed and for the men to salvage what they could. The best he could do for now was to tell them to follow the tracks and make for Dieppe. With no maps available, it was the only town they knew the route to that would contain British troops. As they turned away from the train, the huge numbers of refugees made any attempt to maintain contact between groups impossible and Hodgkinson just had to hope that come daylight some sort of order could be restored.

  ‘Walking on the ballast soon made soft feet sore and the alternative of doing a sort of dot and carry step on the sleepers was very exhausting’2 and after about 3 miles of this Company Quartermaster Sergeant John Brown was already feeling the strain. At a small bridge, he met a group of British officers and Belgian soldiers who asked who was in charge of his party. Brown replied that he was the senior man. They had a suspected spy they wanted to hand over but Brown was too busy to even consider accepting him and said so. Without trying to force the issue, the officers then told him that they were planning to dump their kit and head for Dieppe as fast as possible and advised him to do the same. Brown thanked them for the advice and asked about the train standing alongside. That, he was told, was a refugee train and wouldn’t be moving for at least two days. Then he noticed the lights of another train up ahead on the track. It was moving at walking pace and he could see one or two men jumping aboard. Taking his leave of the group at the bridge he and his small party caught up and threw themselves into the open door of a cattle truck to find a mixed group of KOYLI and Belgian troops inside. Panting could be heard outside the slow moving train as the suspected spy and his escort caught up with Brown and asked him what to do. Brown told them to shoot him but then, his training as a solicitor’s clerk coming back to him, asked if the man had been tried. Hearing that he hadn’
t, Brown urged the men not to kill him. He was thrown into the next wagon.3

  The journey was a short one and after covering perhaps four kilometres in half an hour, the train lurched to a halt. The line ahead was blocked – probably by the broken down train the Dukes had cobbled together – and the Belgians were ordered off. As they assembled on the trackside, Brown noticed that the guard appeared but without the prisoner. He decided not to ask questions. Nearby, he spotted a group of around 25 KOYLIs under the command of Lieutenant O’Connor and ran to catch up. Together they set off once again on their trek. The exhausted Brown had to abandon his pack after a short distance just to keep up. Unknowingly, in the darkness they passed through the area held by the Dukes and soon encountered the wrecked train at Fressenville, Brown noticing the decapitated driver and the mourning dog that would still be there the next day when the Dukes arrived. The KOYLI party was too small to do anything. They pushed on.

  Just after 0700hrs, they reached a small village. His water bottle empty since the day before, Brown was parched but the locals refused to allow the men to refill their bottles. Instead, in desperation, he agreed to pay 50 francs for a siphon of soda water from the owner of the cafe. There was no food available for them at any price. Moving off two hours later, he reached a footpath just off the main road before he ‘laid down and fell into a coma’.4 The Regimental Quartermaster woke him and gave him a sip of whisky from his flask, encouraging him with the news that transport would be with them soon. Sure enough, a short while later Captain Taylor arrived with one of the battalion trucks and ferried Brown and two other men to nearby Eu.