´óÏó´«Ã½

The exploits leading up to the evacuation of four-fifths of the British Expeditionary Force from France, and the heroism of the soldiers on the beaches and the sailors and civilians in the boats has been well documented.

However, the fate of the last fifth still in that country has hardly been recorded at all. I do not put this down to any other lack of interest or concern of the general public, but rather to the fact that the war correspondents, senior officers who wrote memoirs, and others having the ability and opportunity to with were no longer there. Consequently the period of the next week or two scarcely exists in the annals of the British Army. My own modest activities during the next two weeks are hardly headline stuff, but I am sure that they are common with many other British soldiers who finally extricated themselves from the chaos to fight again in campaigns all over the world over the next five years until final victory was gained.

The Dunkirk evacuation took place between 27th May and 4th June 1940, during which time some 30,000 British troops were evacuated from the beaches. I now describe our activities from the latter date when I was a newly promoted sergeant, and our four-gun troop was in action south of the river Somme. Our future was uncertain. Were we to advance towards Belgium from which direction the German Panzer divisions were expected to come? Or were we to be an early objective to the enemy thrust? We had only heard vague rumours of the collapse of Belgium and the undisciplined shambles of the French army, and were convinced that any retreat of British troops on Dunkirk was a temporary measure for re-grouping. By this time, in fact, the worst had already happened.

When our orders finally came they were neither of the alternatives we had expected, but we were to retire to the south west with our guns and equipment. By 9th June the German operations to the north-west of Paris had brought them to the lower reaches of the river Seine, and it was considered that we could continue to serve no useful purpose to the north of that river. We were to cross over and be prepared to go into action in a line along the south bank. The nearest point of crossing was the ferry at Quillebeuf about 40km west of Rouen. As we approached the ferry it was apparent that a very large number of French civilians had the same idea as us. My memory is of a long road, little better than a lane, with ditches on either side, jam-packed with French cars, lorries and carts of all descriptions filled to capacity with people and goods. The cars had mattresses on their roofs for protection against whatever might descend from above. We had four heavy mobile guns, gun-towing vehicles and a number of other lorries containing ammunition, stores and personnel. We had orders to be cross the river and be set up in action by 10th June to protect the crossing against the advancing tanks and troops of the German army.

In fact, this we achieved, but not without seriously inconveniencing the French refugees, who had to be pushed unceremoniously to one side. We were not very popular with them after this episode, but that I am afraid was their problem. Further advances of the seemingly unstoppable Germans towards the outskirts of Paris, and the fall of Rouen, reduced the importance of Quillebeuf. Other crossings of the Seine were now available.

To give you an idea of the modest extent of our convoy, our party, all Territorials of the County Yeomanry regiment, was about 70 strong all ranks. This comprised two subalterns, both extremely pleasant and keen but woefully inexperienced, six sergeants, twelve bombardiers and about fifty gunners.

For the first time it now occurred to us we were likely to be leaving the country. But how? Airlifting was a practice yet to be developed, and all the channel ports north of the Seine were in the hands of the enemy. Attempts to land supporting British troops to reinforce us had not proved successful. What routes of escape were left? Cherbourg, Brest, St. Nazaire and Bordeaux were all possible, none was easy. We had limited supplies of fuel, scanty rations and no possibility of replenishing either. Fortunately we had bully beef in modest amounts, biscuits in plenty, some chocolate and a little rum. With this and what we could get off the land we should be able to survive for a limited period. Cherbourg in the North West was too risky with the chance of being cut off in the Contentin peninsular. Brest was reported to be badly damaged by the British and probably unusable. Bordeaux much too far away, we had nothing like enough fuel to get out guns and ourselves that far. This left St. Nazaire, really unknown quantity, but the distance from where we were about 325 km (202 miles) not thought to be impossibility. What optimists we were!

We set out on 10th June in the direction of Caen, our small convoy of about a dozen assorted vehicles plus two motorcycles. No other troops were with us and we were from now on quite isolated from any higher command or sources of supplies or information. We arrived in the vicinity of Caen on 11th June and heard through various sources that Paris had fallen and was occupied the enemy. Also that General Brooke, the chief of staff in Whitehall (later to be Viscount Alanbrooke), had convinced Churchill that the remainder of the British forces must be immediately ordered home. We at least now knew with certainty what we must try to do, we pressed on in the direction of Rennes where we arrived on the 13th. Later I discovered that Churchill flew to tours on that day for a meeting with the French Prime minister in an attempt to persuade France to continue the struggle. He was immediately turned down.

At each stop and particularly every night on our journey we took pains to camouflage our vehicles and guns in lanes overshadowed by trees of farm buildings. We slept near by in whatever shelter we could find, washed and shaved in streams which were frequently on hand. The weather could not have been kinder to us. Beautiful early summer days and warm nights. This gypsy life was very little hardship at all.

The state of our vehicles was another matter. The superb columns of military transport one sees day to day are very different from the vehicles available to us than. Apart from our excellent AEC Matador diesel gun-towing vehicles nearly fifty per cent of our lorries were requisitioned civilian vans of a very uncertain vintage. Although this fact caused us to use some very un-soldier like language at times, they held out remarkably well and we became quite attached to them. Especially the ‘banana wagon’, practically brakeless, ‘meat delivered daily’ quite breathless and ‘dairy products’, completely useless

There were some senior army formations in Rennes and we were delayed there three days pending the possibility of some new orders. By this time the enemy had occupied Orleans and their armoured columns were moving rapidly south west down the country in large numbers. Quite frankly there seemed little point in our hanging about and allowing our proposed route to St. Nazaire, still over a hundred kilometres away, to be cut by the Panzer divisions, against whom we had little means of making an impact. We therefore set off on our travels again down the road to the port, approaching it towards noon on 17th June, which it transpired was the day that the Petain government, now ruling in France, asked the Germans for an armistice. By this time other small British units, coming from various directions, were funnelling in towards the port, and we were no longer entirely on our own. As we got nearer the traffic increased to quite a steady flow. Some, I am sorry to say, were not as well disciplined as our little convoy. We were still capable of operations and could have gone into action at any time required, but it was clear that organised retreat was deteriorating into rather a sorry rush.

I vividly remember approaching St. Nazaire. I recall a long straight road with low hedges and occasional farm gates on either side. The countryside was flat fields with flair visibility in most directions. To the north, however, the sky was black all along the horizon with dense clouds of smoke from burning oil in dumps, which were destroyed to prevent their use by the enemy. To the south it was blue sky and the sun still shone. Occasionally military policemen appeared at crossroads and were directing traffic as best they could. On our left we passed a large field, which was completely filled with abandoned British army vehicles, many of which were ablaze. The smoke and flames from these gave an eerie glow to the dramatic setting of the town of St. Nazaire with its docks, cranes and other port installations coming into view ahead. Just short of the port our little convoy was directed through a gate on the right of the road, and a parley with a red-tabbed staff officer resulted in an order that we were to drop our guns into action covering the road back, to protect he embarkation of the last remaining troops to leave against air or ground attack by the advancing Germans.

One of our sergeants, who had not been well for the last week, was now visibly deteriorating. As there was no form of medical help available we managed to get him delivered to the local civilian hospital by a passing staff car which we flagged down at the gate to our field. We were fortunate in that the rest of us were fairly fit, thanks to the fact that we had not seen active fighting over the last two weeks. This was in direct contrast with the six previous weeks when we had fired over a thousand rounds from each of our four heavy guns, causing the barrels to be worn to the extent that they were due for replacement and no longer reliable. New barrels were, of course, not on hand. It must be remembered that they weigh over two tons each so, even if they have been made available, changing them was not a task we could have readily undertaken at the side of road.

So far we have been fortunate in not being attacked from the air. I think this was because we were a small convoy and as far as possible we avoided the main roads and only halted when under cover. Also, during the most recent days the palls of smoke which arose in many places made flying and observation both difficult. I think the Luftwaffe was busy reforming and building up units for future attacks across the channel, which seemed the next logical step.

We were standing ready for action by early afternoon, when the order came through that we were to remain in position until 0600 hours the following morning - 18th June. It was estimated that by then all the troops would be embarked on any spare vessels available in the harbour. We had to retain sufficient personnel to man the guns and equipment; the remainder were to be permitted to join the flood down the road to the docks, where they would hope to find a ship for passage to the UK. The selection of these happy few, those to go, was carried out in the best army tradition of ‘You, you and you’, although some regard was paid to family men with commitments. We learned later that most of these people boarded the ill-fated SS Lancastria, which was sunk that night with severe loss of life. It was eventually announced in the press that the SS Lancastria was sunk outside St. Nazaire harbour around midnight on 17th/18th June 1940. Action by enemy aircraft caused a bomb to pass down a funnel into the interior of the ship which sank immediately. More than 3 thousand men perished. We who remained on the site viewed the last of the various units gong down the road with a mixture of envy and derision. Cries of ‘go home to mummy then, we’ll see the nasty Germans don’t hurt you’ and several other less polite adieus sprang from our lips. This, in some strange way, seemed to bolster our spirits.

The night dragged on without any signs of the enemy, although through probably exaggerated reports from the last stragglers coming down the road, they were apparently in large numbers with unlimited armour just through the last village a couple of miles away. At about 2am, when the time came for us to leave was coming near, thought was given to our lad in hospital. Our advance party the day before had not been able to secure his discharge from hospital because of his critical condition, although it was thought that on the morrow it might be possible to let him go. As I had not entirely wasted my time at school my French was passable and had improved over the last six months by usage on every possible occasion. My vocabulary was more extensive if not more exclusive. It was therefore I who was nominated to go the hospital and get him out.

We had an Austin 7 scout car, the jeep having not yet been invented, and in this I set off for the hospital. The town of St. Nazaire was a strange sight in the early hours of the morning of 18th June. It was relatively undamaged except for the dock area, and despite the hour many cafes were busy with the sound of music, dancing and drunken laughter. So much for the concern felt by the French civilians.

In this frame of mind I arrived at the hospital and demanded an interview with the doctor in charge. After some time a rather seedy individual was produced and in reply to my request to take our man away, said with a Gallic shrug of the shoulders that he would probably not survive if I did. Our sergeant overheard this but nevertheless made it quite clear that he would prefer to risk rather than hazard being taken as a prisoner of war, or even staying on in hospital of which he evidently had a low opinion. I therefore took him back with me to the gun position and his mates.

Now we had many preparations to make. It was clear that our heavy guns, which we had sweated a lot of blood to bring so many miles, could not conceivably be loaded on any ship that was likely to be available. Therefore, they would have to be destroyed. The method is rather hair-raising because for obvious reasons it is something that one is not able to practise. Briefly, you load one shell in the breach and then another is poked pointed end first down the barrel. This produces a great deal of damage, and a lot of noise, when the gun is fired by remote control, i.e. by a long piece of string by a ‘volunteer’ in a hole in the ground. Our gun dials, predictors and other technical items were destroyed by the scientific use of sledge hammer.

Continued in Part 2 - Story A6870413

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