The BEF in France, 1939–1940

Manning the Front Through to the Dunkirk Evacuation

John Grehan, Martin Mace

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781783462117
• eBook ISBN: 9781473838444
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History

Collected frontline communications from the British Expeditionary Force sent during their efforts in France during World War II.
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the British force in Europe from 1939–1940 during the Second World War. Commanded by General Lord Gort, the BEF constituted one-tenth of the defending Allied force.
The British Expeditionary Force was started in 1938 in readiness for a perceived threat of war after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 and the claims on the Sudetenland, which led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. After the French and British had promised to defend Poland, the German invasion of that country began and war was declared on 3 September 1939.
The BEF was sent to France in September 1939 and deployed mainly along the Belgian—French border during the so-called Phoney War leading up to May 1940. The BEF did not commence hostilities until the invasion of France on 10 May 1940. After the commencement of battle, they were driven back through Belgium and north-western France, forcing their eventual evacuation from several ports along the French northern coastline in Operations Dynamo, Ariel and Cycle. The most notable evacuation was from the Dunkirk region and from this the phrase Dunkirk Spirit was coined.

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DESPATCHES ON OPERATIONS OF THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, FRANCE AND BELGIUM, SEPTEMBER 1939 TO MAY 31 1940

BY GENERAL THE VISCOUNT GORT, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, B.E.F.

FRIDAY, 17 OCTOBER, 1941

War Office,
March, 1941.

The following Despatches have been received by the Secretary of State for War from General the Viscount GORT, V.C., K.C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., M.V.O., M.C., Commander-in-Chief, British Expeditionary Force. (France and Belgium 1939-40.)

FIRST DESPATCH

(Covering the period from 3rd September, 1939, to 31st January, 1940).

General Headquarters,

British Expeditionary Force,

25th April, 1940.

Sir,

1. I have the honour to submit a report on the employment of the British Expeditionary Force in France from 3rd September, 1939, the date I assumed command, until 31st January, 1940.

2. The move of the Force to France began as a whole on 10th September, although small advanced parties and technical personnel had been arriving since 4th September. The success of the initial operation was due primarily to the many detailed and complex plans carefully prepared under conditions of absolute secrecy in peace time. The perfection of these plans, the ready co-operation of the Board of Trade, the complete arrangements made by the Admiralty for the safety of ships while at sea, and the willing help of the French Naval, Military, and Civil authorities all combined to ensure the successful landing of the British Troops in France.

3. The plans for the despatch of the Force differed in two important respects from those of August, 1914.

The possibility of attack by sea and air made it necessary to use the Western ports of France instead of the Channel ports, while the total replacement of animals by mechanical vehicles, which had been completed by 1939, presented a new problem in transportation.

The troops were landed at Cherbourg and their stores and vehicles were despatched to Nantes, St. Nazaire, and Brest.

This plan entailed the early despatch of staff with the proper complement of units of the Docks and other Transportation Services. The personnel of these Services were in the main recruited from the Port Authorities in Great Britain at the outbreak of war.

These units were operating to full capacity the berths allotted to the Force, within forty-eight hours of landing, and the programme was carried out according to the time table throughout the whole period of the disembarkation of 1st and 2nd Corps. This I regard as a feat deserving of the highest praise.

4. On landing the fighting troops were passed rapidly through transit camps and their vehicles were cleared at once to Vehicle Marshalling Parks, whence they were despatched in convoys, while troops left by rail on the same day as they landed.

Since the troops and their vehicles were landed at different ports they had to be collected in an assembly area which had been chosen in the vicinity of Le Mans and Laval. The assembling of troops by rail and vehicles by road took about six days. The resource of individual drivers was tested by changes of programme, inevitable in an operation of this kind, by the damage which some vehicles had sustained during the sea passage and by mechanical failures. Drivers and vehicles were on the road for long periods, but their duty was lightened by the hospitality of the French inhabitants, which all ranks will recall with gratitude.

5. On 13th September I moved my headquarters from the War Office to Camberley, where General Headquarters was forming. On the following day, accompanied by Lieutenant-General (now General) Sir John Dill, Commander of 1st Corps, and by my personal staff, I embarked in H.M.S. “Skate,” and, landing at Cherbourg, left by motor car for the Château de la Blanchardière, Le Mans, which the French Government had kindly placed at my disposal.

6. On 21st September the concentration of the General Headquarters Staff and of the essential Lines of Communication units was complete. The next day the advanced elements of 1st Corps and of General Headquarters Troops arrived, the former moving to an area around Laval and the latter to an area around Le Mans. Units were given a minimum of one week in which to assemble and reorganise and although some of the units of 1st Corps were still incomplete, the limited accommodation available in the assembly area made it essential to begin the move forward before 26th September when the leading units of 2nd Corps were due to arrive.

7. During these early weeks the maintenance of the Force presented a problem which called for the greatest resource and initiative on the part of my Quarter-Master-General, Lieutenant-General W.G. Lindsell, his Staff and Services.

In the units of the Royal Army Service Corps were many officers and men fresh from civil life who were constantly called upon to surmount unforeseen difficulties. By their unflagging energy and the assistance of the French authorities the Force was maintained without any failure of supplies. It should be added that with the exception of eleven regular officers, the personnel of the Movement Control organisation was built up from Supplementary Reserve officers and men.

The administrative staff were obliged to deal with the day-to-day work of landing troops, their vehicles and current supplies, and to undertake the equally important task of building up reserves of ammunition, supplies, and ordnance stores. Covered accommodation was difficult to obtain and temporary dumps of non-perishable stores had to be established wherever the necessary space could be found in the vicinity of the ports of entry.

8. In these early days the Staff met for the first time the problem arising from the wide dispersion imposed by the necessity to guard against air attack.

The towns of Le Mans and Laval were fifty miles apart, and the base ports were on an average one hundred and fifty miles from the assembly area. Helpful though the French authorities were, the unfamiliar conditions made telephone communication difficult, apart from the danger of breach of security which it entailed. Since many despatch riders spoke no French it was often found that control could only be properly maintained by personal visits; Commanders and their staffs were therefore forced to spend many hours on the road.

The dispersion dictated by the possibility of aerial bombardment greatly increases demands upon signal communications and transport and thus lengthens the time which must elapse between the issue of orders and their execution.

The Move to the Belgian Frontier.

9. On 22nd September, I left Le Mans for Amiens. Arriving at Mantes-sur-Seine, I was handed a telegram from General Georges, Commander of the French Front of the North-East, which read as follows:-

“Pour Général Commandant, B.E.F.

“Limite envisagée prévoit front de B.E.F. droite à MAULDE gauche à MENIN ou gauche à AUTRYCHE-SUR-ESCAUT. Général GEORGES désirerait avoir accord 22 Septembre.”

In the meantime, however, General Gamelin had proceeded to London to discuss with His Majesty’s Government the frontage which was to be held by the British Expeditionary Force.

After I had made a reconnaissance on 24th and 25th September of the sector which it was proposed to allot to the British Expeditionary Force I visited General Georges at Grand Quartier General on 26th September, in the company of my Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General H.R. Pownall. I then agreed to accept the sector offered by General Georges to the British Expeditionary Force. This sector was from Maulde exclusive to Halluin inclusive, and thence a defensive flank along river Lys/Armentières. General Georges placed 51st French Division (Général de Brigade Gillard) under my command, and I decided to employ it in my left sector, covering the towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing.

10. It had been originally intended that formations, as soon as they had completed their reorganisation in the assembly area, should move to a concentration area in the North of France, and remain there in readiness to occupy the line not earlier than 5th October. General Georges decided, however, that it was inadvisable to await the arrival of the whole British Expeditionary Force in the concentration area and expressed a wish that 1st Corps should move without delay into the sector north of Maulde. I accordingly informed General Georges that 1st Corps would take over its sector on 3rd October and that 2nd Corps would be able to go into the line about 12th October.

1st Corps began the two hundred and fifty-mile move from the assembly area on 26th September.

Tanks, tracked vehicles, and slow moving artillery proceeded by train and the remainder of the force advanced on three parallel routes.

Three days were allotted for the move of each formation. Two staging areas were arranged on each road, south of the rivers Seine and Somme respectively, and anti-aircraft defence was provided at these river crossings. The weather was fine throughout the whole period of the move.

The first stage was one hundred and twenty miles. An average of five hundred vehicles moved daily over each stage of the route, maintaining a distance of one hundred yards between each vehicle as a precaution against air attack. A halt of one day for maintenance purposes was made after the first day’s move.

In the initial stages of the move, the Provost service were responsible for the regulation of traffic, but on entering the French Zone des Armees, columns came under the direction of the French road control (Regulatrice Routiere) organisation, which gave valuable help in marking detours and in directing traffic through towns. A French-speaking British officer was established in Amiens to ensure liaison between my headquarters and the French authorities.

Breakdowns and accidents were few, which reflects great credit on the drivers, who were unaccustomed to long hours at the wheel and to driving on the right-hand side of the road. Among the many important lessons which were learnt during the largest road movement ever undertaken with motor transport by any British Army were the need for early reconnaissance of staging areas, for control at the dispersal points, and for allowance for unforeseen delays.

11. The move forward continued without incident or interruption, and on the agreed date, 3rd October, 1st Corps took over from the French the sector Maulde-Gruson on the Belgian frontier. This sector lay between that of the 1st French Army and of the 16th French Corps, with 2nd Division (Major-General H.C. Loyd) on the right and 1st Division (Major-General Hon. H.R.L.G. Alexander) on the left.

General Headquarters opened in and around Habarcq (8 miles west of Arras) on 2nd October.

On 12th October, 3rd Division of 2nd Corps (Major-General B.L. Montgomery) moved into the line between Bouvines and Lannoy, relieving the left brigade of 1st Corps and the right regiment of the French 51st Division. 4th Division of the same Corps (Major-General D.G. Johnson, V.C.) was located in General Headquarters reserve.

The initial occupation of the line by the British Expeditionary Force was thus completed and the organisation of the position was undertaken at once.

The Organisation of the British Positions.

12. In allotting sectors the geographical features of the pronounced salient occupied by the British Expeditionary Force had to be considered. East of the Tournai-Orchies road the country is flat, much wooded and intersected by small streams. Further to the north lies open and undulating agricultural land which lends itself to artillery observation and to the movement of armoured fighting vehicles. Further north again the sector is for the most part on the fringe of a highly industrial and mining district.

When 1st Corps arrived in the sector assigned to the British Expeditionary Force in the first week in October, an almost continuous anti-tank obstacle already existed in the form of a ditch covered by concrete blockhouses built to mount anti-tank guns and machine guns. In accordance with plans prepared in peace time certain French technical troops continued to work in the sector under the command of the French Commander of the Defensive Sector of Lille, Colonel (now Général de Brigade) Bertschi.

While defences continued to develop on the lines of the original plan, based on the close defence of the frontier, it was also necessary to organise the position.

The priority of work envisaged the eventual construction of three positions in the forward area, and a Corps reserve position was sited across the base of the Lille salient formed by the frontier. Further in rear, a second position had been sited, following the line of the Haute Deule, Sensée and La Bassée canals.

The whole scheme involved the immediate construction of field defences and the duplication of the anti-tank obstacle in the forward zone.

It was consequently necessary to construct at an early stage reinforced concrete “pillboxes” to afford protection to those weapons which formed the backbone of the fire defence throughout the whole depth of the position. In order to save time standard designs were prepared to accommodate both British and French weapons.

13. Work on these “pill-boxes” was begun by the Royal Engineers, assisted by other arms. Early in November a specially constituted force composed of twelve field companies of the Royal Engineers drawn from Territorial Army Divisions at home, and known as “X Force,” arrived in the British Expeditionary Force area. This force had its own transport and special plant for the construction of reinforced concrete “pill-boxes” by mass production methods. It was accompanied by companies of the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps.

A special Excavator Company, equipped with mechanical excavators of various types, arrived at the same time as X Force. It has been employed in digging anti-tank ditches, burying signal cables, constructing breastworks, and other tasks.

A creation of such a defensive system demanded a quantity and variety of engineer stores far exceeding pre-war anticipations.

Bad weather in October and November, and a succession of frosts later, considerably delayed the work, but by the end of the period covered by this despatch the position had been developed in considerable depth. A large number of concrete “pill-boxes” had been completed and many others were under construction; new wire had been erected and existing wire strengthened, buildings had been reinforced, and many miles of anti-tank ditch dug.

The Saar Detachment.

14. In November, 1939, I arranged with General Georges that a British infantry brigade should take its place in the line on the Saar front, under the command of a French Division.

The brigade took over the sector from the French 42nd Division on the 4th December without enemy interference and during the period under review conditions were quiet.

Since that date infantry brigades of the British Expeditionary Force have successively completed short tours of duty in this sector, and jun...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• List of Illustrations
• 1. Despatches on operations of the British Expeditionary Force, France and Belgium, 3 September 1939 to 31 May 1940, by General the Viscount Gort
• 2. Operation Dynamo – the evacuation of the Allied armies from Dunkirk and neighbouring beaches by Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay
• 3. Despatches on operations of the British Expeditionary Force, France from 12 June 1940 to 19 June 1940, by Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Brooke
• Appendix - The British Expeditionary Force Order of Battle as organised on 10 May 1940
• Abbreviations