Dunkirk: Nine Days That Saved An Army

A Day-by-Day Account of the Greatest Evacuation

John Grehan

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526724854
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

The epic of Dunkirk has been told many times, but the numerous accounts from surviving soldiers and sailors were often a blur of fear and fighting with the days mingling into each other, leaving what is, at times, a confusing picture. In this book, adopting a day by day approach, the author provides a clear portrayal of the unfolding drama on the perimeter around Dunkirk, in the port itself and along the beaches to La Panne and the Belgian border.Reports from many of the captains of the vessels which took part in the great evacuation were submitted to the Admiralty immediately after the conclusion of Operation Dynamo. With access to these, and supported by the various records maintained by the Army and RAF, the author has been able to finally piece together the movements and actions of the many of the squadrons, units and ships involved.With the Admiralty reports and a mass of other firsthand accounts, many of which have never been published before, the true tale of the heroism of the rescued and the rescuers is laid bare. Operation Dynamo saw civilian volunteers and Royal Navy personnel manning every type of craft from the antiaircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta to the cockle boats of the Thames Estuary. The accounts of the men who crewed these vessels tell of being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe or shelled from the shore. There are stories of collisions in the dark, chaos on the beaches and tragic losses as ships went down. Similar tales are told by the men waiting on the beaches, defending the perimeter or flying in the skies overhead in a valiant effort to hold the German Army and Luftwaffe at bay.Yet this is ultimately a story, as Churchill described it, of deliverance, for against all the predictions, the BEF was saved to fight again another day. With civilians and servicemen working without respite for days and nights on end under almost continual attack to rescue the army, the nation pulled together as never before. It truly was Britains finest hour.

Chapter 1

The British Expeditionary Force In France

Unlike the euphoria that had greeted the declaration of war in August 1914, few welcomed the start of another global conflict in September 1939. The memories, and the scars, of the First World War were still too fresh to be forgotten. It was consternation rather than celebration that marked the news that a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was crossing the Channel once again to defend France.

This time there was a new factor for the staff of General Headquarters to consider. In 1914, there was no threat from the air, for the few aircraft available to the enemy were employed only in reconnaissance. Now the Luftwaffe was Germany’s most potent weapon, its fighters and bombers having demonstrated their deadly proficiency in the Spanish Civil War.

Unless the troops could be transported across to France swiftly and secretly, they might never reach the Continent. With the bulk of the German armed forces engaged in the invasion of Poland, now was the time to ship the troops to France, and the advanced units of the BEF were on the move on 4 September, within twenty-four hours of war being declared.

In addition, rather than transporting the troops across the Channel to the northern French ports of Calais or Dunkirk where they would be within easy range of German aircraft, it was arranged for them to be shipped further south, and they were landed at Cherbourg, with their stores and vehicles being despatched to Nantes, St. Nazaire, and Brest.

Ahead of the troops, were sent units of the Docks and Transportation services and within forty-eight hours of arriving at the French ports, these men who, in the main, had been recruited from port authorities around Britain, had the berths allocated to the BEF operating at maximum capacity.

The current BEF had only been formed in 1938 following Germany’s annexation of Austria and Hitler’s threatened dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Before Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain secured a deal with Hitler, which gave the German leader a free hand in Czechoslovakia in return for a vague promise that the Führer would make no further territorial demands, it looked as if there would be war in Europe. Though there was a relaxation of tension following the Munich Agreement of 29 September 1938, senior British and French officers continued to plan for war and for the defence of the French border. This meant that when war finally came, plans were already in hand for the deployment of the BEF and within two weeks of the declaration of war in 1939, General The Viscount Gort VC, Commander-in-Chief of the BEF, had already established his headquarters at Le Mans.

As his troops landed, they were passed rapidly through transit camps and their vehicles were cleared at once to Vehicle Marshalling Parks, from where they were despatched in convoys, while the troops themselves left by rail on the same day as they marched off the ships.

Since the troops and their vehicles were landed at different ports they had to be collected in an assembly area. The area selected was in the region around Le Mans and Laval, and it took Gort’s force around six days to assemble there. Le Mans and Laval are fifty miles apart, the troops being so widely dispersed in case of attack by the Luftwaffe. This area is also around 150 miles from the disembarkation ports. Feeding and supplying the troops spread over such distances proved a significant logistical challenge, and the roads and railways of western France were soon choked with traffic.

I Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Michael George Henry Barker, consisted of a headquarters’ force and three infantry divisions –1st, 2nd and 48th (South Midland) – each of which was composed of three infantry brigades with accompanying artillery and engineers. II Corps, under the command of Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, was similarly composed of three infantry divisions, in this case the 3rd, 4th and 50th (Northumbrian), and the same support arms. Each division also had its own armoured regiment and a machine-gun battalion

Before the troops could be moved up to the French border ready to face the enemy, the exact sector to be manned by the BEF had to be firmly established. On 22 September, Gort received a message from Général Alphonse Georges, Commander of the French Front of the North-East, which informed Gort that his area of responsibility would be from ‘Maulde exclusive to Halluin inclusive, and thence a defensive flank along river Lys/Armentières’. To help Gort defend this sector of the line, Georges placed the 51st French Division (Général de Brigade Gillard) under his command. Gort decided to employ it on the left of the sector, covering the towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing.

It had been originally intended that as soon as it had completed its reorganisation in the assembly area, the BEF should move to a concentration point in the north of France, and remain there in readiness to occupy the line not earlier than 5 October. Général 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 I Corps should move up to the front without delay. Gort agreed and he told Georges that I Corps would take over its sector of the line on 2 October, and that II Corps would follow ten days later.

I Corps began the 250-mile move from the assembly area on 26 September. Tanks, tracked vehicles, and slow-moving artillery went by train, with the rest of the of the corps advancing 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. With the fear of aerial attack defining the nature of every movement, anti-aircraft guns were set up to defend these river crossings. Luckily, the weather was fine throughout the whole period of the move, and there was little attention from the German Air Force.

The first stage of the journey north was 120 miles. An average of 500 vehicles moved daily over each stage of the route, maintaining a distance of 100 yards between each vehicle as a precaution against the constant concern over air attack. A halt of one day for maintenance purposes was made after the first day’s move. Nevertheless, I Corps completed its move on schedule, taking over from the French the sector Maulde-Gruson on the Belgian frontier. This sector lay between that of the 1st French Army and the 16th French Corps.

Likewise, II Corps moved into its position on the Belgium border on 12 October. General Headquarters was established in and around Habarcq, some eight miles west of Arras.

The BEF was in position ready to face the enemy just five weeks after the declaration of war.

ON THE FRONT LINE

France’s main line of defence’ of course, was the famous Maginot Line. It was named after the French Minister of War, André Maginot, who secured funding for a series of fortifications to guard France’s eastern frontier, using such emotive language as ‘concrete is less expensive than a wall of chests.’1 The Line was built following a national debate which took place in France after the terrible experience of the First World War, on how to prevent the Germans from invading France in the future. It was said that the foundations of the Maginot Line were the war cemeteries of France.2 Work began on the Line in 1930. The series of defences ran from the Alps, where the forts defended the border with Italy, along France’s eastern frontier until it reached Luxemburg and Belgium.

An advance by the Germans through Luxembourg was discounted because the heavily-wooded Ardennes hills extended along this border region. By contrast, an advance through Belgium, as had happened in 1914, was considered highly likely and France wanted Belgium to participate in this defensive scheme.

But the Belgians did not want to do anything that would compromise their stated position as neutrals. If they would have participated in continuing the Line along their frontier with Germany it would have implied that they viewed the Germans as their enemy – which the Belgian Government feared would provoke an immediate German invasion.

On the other hand, as it was perceived at the time, if France would have stretched the Maginot Line along its border with Belgium, then that small country would have been left with little choice other than to abandon its neutrality and align itself with Germany. So, the northern flank of the magnificent, impenetrable Maginot Line remained open and exposed and it was there where the BEF was deployed – where the main German attack was most likely to be delivered. It must be noted at this point that France’s policy was not merely defensive. Wars are not won by static defences. The Maginot Line was only expected to hold back the Germans long enough for France (and possibly its allies) to mobilize forces powerful enough to take the offensive and carry the fight to the enemy.

This was, in effect, a replica of the success of the First World War when the Germans were held by the trench network that stretched along the Western Front, before the Allies mounted the attacks that helped precipitate the collapse of German resolve in 1918. But it is axiomatic that generals always prepare for the last war, and there can be few more egregious examples than that of the French military planners of the inter-war years.

As soon as the British troops arrived on the Belgian border they found that French engineers had already built an almost continuous anti-tank ditch along the frontier covered by concrete blockhouses that were equipped with anti-tank weapons and machine-guns. It had been agreed earlier that the French engineers would continue to add to these defences in conjunction with the BEF, and a massive building programme of reinforced concrete pillboxes and trenches therefore began in earnest. The BEF was digging-in.

Along the 200 miles from the end of the Maginot Line at Longuyon to the North Sea coast were five armies. Along the first sector to Sedan stood the French Second Army; from Sedan to the valley of the Oise was the Ninth Army; the First Army then occupied a line from the Oise to Maulde. The BEF was posted between Maulde to Bailleul, and then the French Seventh Army took over the front to the coast.

This was the start of the ‘Phoney War’, the ‘Bore War’ or ‘Sitzkreig,’ as it was variously called, with the Germans showing no sign of risking an attack upon France or Belgium. As the months passed by with no indication of movement by the enemy, discussions were even held about reducing the strength of the BEF and transferring the troops to other theatres where they would be of more use.3

Bored though the British were, they were not allowed to be idle during their time on the Belgian border and by early May 1940, more than 400 concrete pillboxes of varying size had been completed with over 100 more under construction, while work on the improvement of field defences, barbed-wire and other obstacles proceeded continuously on the original front and in the sector north of Armentières recently taken over from the French.

Chiefly by the use of excavator machinery, in excess of forty miles of revetted anti-tank ditch had been added to that prepared by the French Army during peace time. Machines had also been used to assist the troops in constructing earthwork defences, as well as in mixing concrete and burying signal cables.

Most of the French divisions on either side of the BEF were no more gainfully employed than their British counterparts, with nothing other than the construction of fieldworks to occupy them. It was only those positioned along the Saar front, ahead of the Maginot Line, that came into contact with the enemy. The French actually undertook an offensive along this sector in September 1939 in a bid to draw German troops away from their attack on Poland. However, the French had little interest in provoking the Germans and the operation was called off after little more than a week. The French troops returned to the security of their positions along the Maginot Line.

Whilst no further large-scale operations took place, the Saar front was not completely quiet. Engagements between the French and the Germans were not uncommon, though few risks were taken by either side, the troops being quite content to stay safely within their own lines.

Nevertheless, there were calls for the British troops to take their share of the limited fighting on the Saar and in response to this call the 3rd Brigade of the BEF’s 1st Division of I Corps was selected to be the first British brigade to go into the Maginot Line.

MANNING THE MAGINOT LINE

Not only was this an opportunity for the men to gain combat experience but it would also counter the German propaganda taunts that ‘Britain would fight the war to the last Frenchman’. By putting these troops in the front line, it would show the French just what the British were capable of and help overcome the morale-sapping effects of indefinite inaction in the waterlogged defensive positions on the Belgian border.

On 27 November 1939, the 1st Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, along with the 1st Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, the 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters, and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Anti-Tank Company, were transferred to Metz, before moving up to the Maginot Line itself.

They were now in Lorraine and as the Shropshires’ commanding officer pointed out to his men, the older Frenchmen in whose farms and houses they were billeted in had served in the First World War as conscripts for the German Army.

Indeed, some people in this border region were still clearly pro-German as the following incident shows, which is recorded in the battalion’s written history: ‘The attitude of some inhabitants was not quite what was expected, for instance an ex-Uhlan NCO deliberately drove his sheep into one of the company billets saying he preferred they should be comfortably accommodated rather than the British troops!’

The Shropshires’ first impression of the Maginot Line defences was a mixed one. ‘We were all astonished at the “Maginot Line,”’ wrote one officer. ‘As I drove through I hardly noticed anything more than a strong anti-tank obstacle of rails, several strong belts of barbed wire and a few pillboxes, so well were the main forts concealed in our sector. The forts were tunnelled out of a small line of hills. The inside of the forts resembled a battleship, each having engine rooms, living accommodation, kitchen, command post and control rooms, turrets, magazines, hospital and so on.’

Another Shropshire officer had quite a different impression of the Maginot Line: ‘We were given a lecture by the French divisional commander on the infantry dispositions – the line of contact, the line of “recoil”, the line of reserve. In fact, we discovered none of these lines had been prepared in any way – no trenches, no wire, nothing.’4

The 3rd Brigade was placed under the command of the French 42nd Division and when the Shropshires moved up to the front the French troops offered the British plenty of advice – but only on how to avoid trouble. This included removing a vital part from each Bren gun just in case someone was stupid enough to fire one at the Germans! The British troops were also advised never to fire at enemy patrols unless they were actually cutting the wire in front of the Allied trenches, just in case the Germans fired back.5

Although the French were reluctant to leave the security of the ligne de contact, the line of contact, the most advanced of the Maginot Line’s defences, the BEF was there to fight – indeed, the Army’s first gallantry medals of the war were won on the Maginot Line. The battalions in the line of contact sent out ‘battle’ patrols at night to engage the enemy. It was later found that large patrols were difficult to control in the dark and twelve seems to have become established as the best number of men for these missions.

A num...