大象传媒

CHAPTER SIX
A LOST CAUSE
A Gunners experience of the Battle for St.Valery and his eventual escape from the beaches at Veules follows:
"Up to noon on the 11th June things were pretty quiet. There were large numbers of Troops there from a mixture of regiments, a great many who had lost contact with their main units. A few minutes after mid day all hell broke loose when the Germans laid down a very heavy barrage on the small Town.
There was a scramble for the beaches in search of cover from the very heavy bombardment but many made there way to the Town's defensive positions to hold off the inevitable attack by tanks and German infantry. The Germans stationed two 'E' boats just off shore, which were machine-gunning those troops on the beaches at Veules and those who had managed to find and board small boats filled with troops attempting to get away from the barrage. This lasted until dusk where many crawled on hands and knees over the pebble beach towards Veules. Here and there I found small caves in the chalk cliffs crammed full of troops. One held about 50 of mainly Seaforth Highlanders. (51st Division) The barrage caused large falls of chalk on the inhabitants. Many of the troops, mostly French huddled under the cliffs three deep in places waiting like everyone else for ships that were never to appear. At 2am reports that ships were in sight caused a rush and at 2.30am a lifeboat reached the shore but we were informed they could only take 25 to 30 men at a time. The round trip took 25 minuets to the cargo ship 300 yards off shore. Eventually a second lifeboat was put into use, which speeded things up, a little.
All this time the Germans search with artillery for the ships then at 5am German aircraft appeared dive-bombing and machine-gunning the ships and the beeches. It amazed me to see the queues of troops waiting their turn to be picked up just standing there in line even though they were now under increased bombardment from the woods around Veules. The Marines who manned the lifeboats were full of cheer and in an attempt to dispel our fears for ourselves and them they just replied that Dunkirk had been a picnic".

Sergeant Tuck continues his own experience.
We spent that night in an open field surrounded by patrolling guards. We were all physically exhausted. We had not had any rations for three days and very little sleep so we were no threat to our guards. I learnt five years later that we numbered more than 40,000 including 12 Generals. But at this time we were about 6,000 or so? Amazingly our General was allowed to retain his car, his ADC and Batman as he went into captivity. Many of these troops had been taken prior to the fall of Dunkirk. It was quite an International collection of not only us British but French Belgians and Dutch troops as well as a few from the Navy. The War Office announced on the 13th June that St.Valery had fallen and that 6,000 Allied troops were taken prisoner. I would imagine this was done to alleviate alarm to the British public? I also discovered that we only had nine Divisions out in France during the whole BEF operation.
The 51st Highland Division supported both French and Belgium forces from early May to the Division's capture in June but British forces fought on together much longer with the French as they were forced back around Paris and the Cherbourg area. Aided by the Belgium Kings Treachery, we were a mere slap on the wrist compared with what the Germans had thrown against us. All in all the Germans announced they had taken in excess of a Million prisoners during their advance into France.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.