The Comet Escape Line E-Book

Alexander Stilwell

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 358

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The Comet Escape Line tells the story of the most successful escape line of the Second World War. Inspired by the English nurse Edith Cavell, who helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium in the First World War, Andrée de Jongh and a group of young Belgian friends conceived an audacious plan to smuggle downed Allied airmen and other evaders from Belgium, through France and over to neutral Spain. Many incredible escapes followed from safe houses in Brussels, making hazardous train journeys through France, or navigating goat paths through the Pyrenees, evading German and Spanish border patrols. By 1945, the line had aided hundreds of evaders and was a vital part of the escape and evasion picture of the Second World War. In The Comet Escape Line, Alexander Stilwell reveals the personalities and motives of the Comet line founders and the British intelligence organisation that supported it, investigates the Gestapo campaign to destroy it and explores the actions of the Nazi collaborators who infiltrated it. Above all, this is the story of the incredibly brave civilians who risked everything to help the Allied cause.

Leseprobe

Main evasion routes in Western Europe from MI9 Escape and Evasion 1939–1945 by Michael Foot and J.M. Langley. (Reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the estate of Michael Foot)

First published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Alexander Stilwell, 2024

The right of Alexander Stilwell to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9609 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Introduction

1     The Three Ds

2     Trial Run

3     MI9 and the European Escape Lines

4     The Net Closes

5     The Swedish Canteen

6     The Trap

7     Arrest, Escape and Deportation

8     Dark Clouds

9     Retribution

10   The Bright New Recruit

11   Meltdown

12   The Man with the Missing Finger

13   Operation Marathon

14   Adieu Paris

15   The Convoy

16   Coming Home

Epilogue

Principal Characters

Organisations

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Gestapo officer looked across his desk at the young woman. He had a file on his desk that had told him something about her, including the previous occasions that she had been interrogated since her arrest, but it did not tell him very much. Her expression was implacable, emphasised by youthful skin drawn tight over high cheekbones, hair swept back from a strong brow and a feminine mouth that was firmly closed. Most impressive were her eyes, which were scintillatingly clear and showed no fear, even though she must be well aware of what the Gestapo were capable of doing in order to extract the information that they needed.

What did they know? That she was a significant player in an escape line that had taken up so many intelligence and police resources to track down. They had received a useful tip-off from a collaborator more interested in money than loyalty. But now they had her it just did not seem to make sense. She looked so young. Surely it was impossible that this young woman – little more than a schoolgirl – could be the head of an organisation that was helping hundreds of Allied servicemen travel the length of France to the Spanish border and freedom. They had run rings around the Geheime Staatspolizei, known as the Gestapo, the Geheime Feldpolizei, or Wehrmacht secret military police, and the Abwehr, or German military intelligence for the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht. The interrogator regarded himself as a good judge of character and he knew how to spot weaknesses. Torture was so unsubtle for a man of his intelligence and so unsuitable for a young woman like this, but he decided to play with the idea anyway. The face remained impassive.

What made it even more difficult was that this young woman had already told them that she was the leader of the escape line.1 How could that be true? Surely an operation that had caused the personal intervention of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring could not be run by a schoolgirl? How can you continue to interrogate someone who has already given you an answer that you are not prepared to believe?

The young woman waited. She was clearly tired and hungry, exhausted both from the long hours of interrogation and from fear and the deprivations of a crowded cell, shared with other women in various stages of despair.

The interrogator looked back at his open dossier. He was an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to know when he was beaten. He closed the dossier and left the room.

This was January 1943, and the young woman was Andrée de Jongh. The story of how she came to be of such interest to the Nazi Gestapo begins about thirty years earlier.

German Invasion of Belgium in the First World War

The long-standing rivalry between Germany and France before 1914 put Belgium in a perilous position. Armies had fought across Belgium before. Generals such as Marlborough, Wellington and Napoleon had found glory or met their Waterloo. Now tensions in Europe were reaching breaking point. Germany was planning to unleash its Schlieffen Plan,2 which would wrong-foot formidable French defences by sending an advance through Belgium and running a ring behind French defences while drawing the French defences at the front towards the east and into the jaws of a trap. To achieve this, Belgium itself would need to be invaded, despite its neutrality. As the German armies advanced in August 1914 and overcame the formidable Belgian fortresses at Liège, the main Belgian Army moved to positions in Flanders while the Belgian Government moved to Le Havre. More than 90 per cent of Belgium was occupied by the Germans. Belgium had a defensive alliance with Great Britain and, technically, the violation of Belgium’s neutrality brought Great Britain into the First World War. In the Battle of the Frontiers, large German and French forces fought across the French and Belgian borders. After a series of German victories, the German advance was finally brought to a halt with the aid of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at the Marne. With a French thrust towards Lorraine, the German commander Moltke3 was tempted to try for a quick victory and the Schlieffen Plan began to unravel. At the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914), French and British forces had regained their composure and successfully counter-attacked the Germans. At the First Battle of Ypres and the Yser (19 October–30 November 1914), the Belgian Army lost about 20,000 men while the Germans lost 130,000. By the end of 1914, armies on both sides had settled down into trench warfare and an ensuing defensive war of attrition.

The majority of Belgium was now under German military rule and any Belgian resistance in occupied areas was strictly punished. Caught in the middle of the invasion was an English nurse called Edith Cavell. The daughter of an English vicar and born in Norwich, she had worked as a nurse at The London Hospital and had moved to Brussels in 1907 at the invitation of Dr Antoine Depage to be the matron of a new nursing school, L’École Belge d’Infirmières Diplomées. She was responsible for training nurses in three hospitals as well as schools, and in due course became matron of a new hospital at St-Gilles in the centre of Brussels.4 On the outbreak of war in 1914, the hospitals came under the control of the Red Cross. Once the German military authorities had taken control of Brussels, Cavell began to take care of wounded soldiers of all nationalities from the front line and devised a plan to help them across the border to neutral Holland.

Cavell was at the centre of a network that included a wide range of Belgians, including aristocrats such as Prince Reginald de Croy and his wife Princess Marie de Croy, based at the Château de Bellignies near Mons; the Countess de Belleville, who provided shelter for men at her house in Montignies-sur-Roc; the chemist Louis Severin; and the architect Philippe Baucq. A Jesuit priest, Father Persoul, also helped evaders to reach the border.5

It was not long before the German authorities became suspicious and the matter became the responsibility of Lieutenant Bergan, head of espionage in the German secret police. Bergan and his associates ran a wide network of spies and informers and, however discreet Cavell and her associates might be, they could never be entirely sure that people who came to their door or who hovered outside in the street were not working for the authorities. While the number of evaders increased, the net was also tightening on the escape organisation.

Other factors made it difficult for evaders to get across the border. After a German submarine sank the Dutch ship Catwyk in April 1915, Holland came to the brink of war and sentries were placed at 15m intervals along the border, which was also mined.

As an increasing number of strangers with unconvincing stories came to her door and to those of her helpers, Cavell resolved to continue undeterred. A particularly effective informer for the Germans was a Frenchman called Georges Gaston Quien, who was responsible for a growing number of arrests.

In August 1915, the secret police finally struck. Cavell and one of her nurses called Sister Wilkins were arrested. They were taken to police headquarters and interrogated by Lieutenant Bergan. Wilkins was allowed to leave but Cavell was placed in the crowded women’s cell in the Kommandantur in Brussels. Two others in the rescue network, the Countess de Belleville and Louise Thuliez, were also arrested. On 7 August, Cavell was moved to the prison at St-Gilles, where she was placed in solitary confinement. On 8 August she was interrogated at Police Station B by Lieutenant Bergan, assisted by the chief officer of criminal investigation, Sergeant Pinkhoff, Sergeant Neuhaus and a spy called Otto Meyer.6

The interrogation was confusing for Cavell who, apart from the stress of arrest and confinement, was asked questions in German that were then translated into French. She replied in French and the transcription was then made in German, making it impossible for Cavell to check its accuracy before she was asked to sign it. This allowed incriminatory nuances to be put into the text without her noticing. After the interrogation, Cavell was returned to her cell for weeks of solitary confinement while she awaited trial.

Cavell’s arrest was brought to the attention of senior members of the British Government, including the Foreign Secretary Edward Grey. Grey asked the United States Ambassador in London to make inquiries through the American legation in Brussels, which was headed by Brand Whitlock. He in turn wrote to the head of the Politische Abteilung, Baron von der Lancken-Wakenitz, suggesting that the legal adviser to the American legation, Gaston Leval, might be entrusted with Cavell’s defence. Receiving no reply, Whitlock repeated the request, upon which he received a reply two days later informing him that Cavell had admitted to the charges against her and that she could not be interviewed while in solitary confinement. Von der Lancken’s letter included the ominous assertion that Cavell had helped men ‘desirous of proceeding to the front’. This directly implied that Cavell had been involved in reinforcing Germany’s enemies.7

To make matters worse for Cavell, the new military governor-general for Belgium was a hardliner called General von Sauberzweig. He was an advocate of any means required to quell resistance and to maintain order. A recalcitrant Englishwoman was very much a fly in his orderly ointment.

The trial was predictably one-sided, but the judges’ conclusions were nonetheless shocking. Edith Cavell, Philippe Baucq, Louise Thuliez, Louis Severin and Jeaunne Belleville were all sentenced to death. Others were given sentences of up to two years’ hard labour, according to the level of their involvement. When she was informed that she could appeal, Cavell replied: ‘No, it is useless. I am English.’ Sauberzweig confirmed her prediction and ordered that the sentence should be carried out immediately. The execution would take place at 7 a.m. the next day, 12 October 1915.

In the small window of time that was available, hurried diplomatic efforts were made by Belgian legal aid adviser Gaston de Laval, Brand Whitlock and the Spanish Minister in Brussels, the Marquis de Villalobar. In the event, their efforts proved to be fruitless. The British Foreign Office took the view that any direct intervention by them would only make matters worse.8

A German Lutheran pastor contacted an Anglican priest in Brussels, the Reverend Stirling Gahan. He visited Cavell in her cell that night to give her the Holy Sacrament. When he said that she would be remembered as a martyr, she replied that she was just a nurse who had tried to do her duty.

The next morning, she and Baucq were taken to the national shooting range, the Tir National, in Schaerbeek, where 250 soldiers awaited them. The open expanse had a large, grassed slope at the end to soak up the bullets. It was cold, wet and muddy. In front of the slope there were two white posts and next to them two coffins. Two groups of eight soldiers were formed up in front of each post. Cavell and Baucq were bound to the posts and then blindfolded. Cavell spoke to the Lutheran pastor in attendance: ‘Ma conscience est tranquille. Je meurs pour Dieu et ma patrie.’ Meanwhile, the firing squad were informed by a German officer that they should have no qualms due to the horrendous crimes that the man and woman before them had committed.9

The doctor in attendance commented: ‘She went to her death with a bearing which is quite impossible to forget.’

He went on: ‘There is a fear lest her death should lead to disorders. … We must hurry and silence and secrecy should surround her grave.’10

Some hope. A legend had been created.

The bullets that caused Cavell to slump forward against her restraints had a similar effect to the German U-boat torpedoes that penetrated the hull of the British liner Lusitania on 7 May 1915, near the southern coast of Ireland, as it crossed the Atlantic from New York. Both events sent shockwaves around the world. Far from ridding themselves of an exasperating Englishwoman who represented all that they loved to hate about England, the German authorities handed their enemies a propaganda coup.

The murder of a nurse was seen as proof of German villainy and protests were made at the highest levels, including by King Alphonso XIII of Spain and President Woodrow Wilson. The German Kaiser, seeing which way the wind was blowing, ordered that there should be no further executions of women without his express permission. He also rescinded the death sentences that had been given to the other plaintiffs in the case.

Recruitment in Britain rose exponentially as young men rallied to the call to avenge the death of Edith Cavell. Monuments began to be erected, including one in St Martin’s Place in London, while Queen Alexandra ordered that a nurse’s home at The London Hospital that had been intended to carry her name should instead be named after Cavell. Her chaplain wrote to Edith’s mother:

I am commanded by Her Majesty Queen Alexandra to write and say how deeply Her Majesty feels for you in the sad and tragic loss of your daughter … always remember that she never failed England in her time of need … The name of Miss Cavell will be held in highest honour and respect …11

By 1918, five Cavell homes had been created. King Albert of Belgium posthumously awarded Cavell the Cross of the Order of Leopold, the Belgian Government awarded her the Croix Civique and France awarded her the Légion d’honneur.

When the war ended, Edith Cavell’s body, which had been placed in what the German authorities hoped would be an unremembered grave, was carried in a gun carriage through the streets of Brussels and then by train to Ostend, where a Royal Navy battleship HMS Rowena was waiting to carry it across the Channel to Dover. Here a train took it to Victoria Station, where a gun carriage carried the coffin in procession to Westminster Abbey escorted by 100 soldiers and accompanied by a band. After a service at the Abbey, the coffin was then taken to Liverpool Street Station for the journey to Norwich, where a burial service took place before the coffin was interred in the Cathedral grounds.

However, there was another way in which Cavell’s witness was remembered. It was taken into the hearts of the Belgian people, with whom she had worked in solidarity during their oppression. Cavell in turn had shown personal admiration for the people among whom she had worked as a nurse for so long. In a letter to her mother, she had written: ‘What do you think of these people: they have suffered and are suffering a martyrdom and in silence. Their attitude is wonderful in reserve and in dignity.’12

Belgium had not just been held in check while the Germans had got on with the war in the trenches; parts of the country had been devastated, as witnessed by the Catholic Cardinal Mercier in his pastoral letter of Christmas 1914: Patriotism and Endurance:

At Louvain, a third of the town has been destroyed and 1074 buildings have disappeared. … Thousands of Belgian citizens have been deported to German prisons – to Munster, to Celle, to Magdeburg. Munster alone has 3,100 civilian prisoners … Thousands have been shot. … In my diocese alone, I know thirteen priests have been executed.13

The priceless library of the University of Leuven had also been burned to the ground.

Edith Cavell saw it as a natural duty not only to help British, French and Belgian servicemen but to be part of the resistance within a neutral nation allied to her own country that had been unlawfully occupied. In this respect, her duty to escaping servicemen was as clear as her duty to her patients. The hospital provided a convenient cover for some of her activities, where evaders were disguised as wounded. It is also worth noting that, apart from her nursing staff, some of whom were English, many helpers in the evasion lines were Belgian women, including aristocrats such as Baronesses de Croy and Belleville and other ordinary people such as a widow who provided shelter and food for the men whom Cavell passed on to her.

It would be possible to go into much more detail about Cavell’s activities and those of her Belgian resistance helpers but suffice it to say that history would repeat itself.

In November 1916, a girl named Andrée was born to Paul and Alice de Jongh in the north-eastern district of Schaerbeek, where Cavell had died almost exactly a year previously, and she was destined to play a major role in the next war.

After a series of massive strikes on the Western Front in 1918, the German armies under General Ludendorff had shot their bolt. Despite causing huge casualties to the Allies, their bulges into the Allied lines invited counter-attacks from French, British, Australian and Canadian forces, increasingly bolstered by reinforcements from the United States. The Allied counter-attacks, often supported by tanks, left German forces with little to fall back on and by 8 August 1918 at the Battle of Amiens Ludendorff acknowledged that the game was up. He advised Kaiser William II that negotiations for peace should be pursued to avoid a catastrophe. Meanwhile, continued Allied offensives pushed German forces back behind the Hindenburg Line, their start point at the beginning of the year.

Another concerted Allied offensive was planned for September that included an advance by the Belgian Army from Ypres towards Ghent. However, the Allies failed to achieve all their objectives, giving renewed hope to some German military commanders that they would not be militarily defeated after all. However, Ludendorff’s scepticism soon spread throughout Germany and public opinion largely turned against the continuation of the war. The German Grand Fleet mutinied when ordered to set out from Kiel for a final showdown with the Royal Navy and there was now a spirit of revolution as communists and others took advantage of the discontent. President Wilson of the United States sent a note to Germany saying that he would recommend an armistice if Germany agreed to render itself incapable of further hostilities. On 8 November representatives of the two warring sides met in the forest of Compiègne north-east of Paris. Here the Germans learned that the Allies were seeking substantial war reparations. Kaiser William II abdicated and a social-democrat, Friedrich Ebert, became Chancellor. The Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918 at 11 a.m. and the war came to an end.

German forces had by then retreated, using a scorched earth policy to slow the Allied advance. Although the prospects looked grim for the Germans, they still had substantial forces in being. The German delegation at Compiègne was led by a civilian and this planted the seed of an idea that Germany had been betrayed while she was still militarily capable of continuing the fight. The sense was further fomented by the massive scale of concessions and reparations that Germany was required to make. In due course, one of the most prominent exponents of this idea of betrayal of German arms would be a corporal who had served in the trenches by the name of Adolf Hitler.

During the course of the war, the Belgian King Albert had remained in command of Belgian troops and was a frequent visitor to the trenches from his headquarters at De Panne, a few miles along the coast north-east of Dunkirk.

As Belgium got on with rebuilding from the wreckage of the Great War under the leadership of King Albert I, Germany formed a new republic at Weimar in August 1919. Although things seemed to be on a democratic footing for Germany, there was bitterness throughout Germany at the terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany lost just under 90,000 square miles of territory and control over 7 million people. Reparations paid to the Allies were in the order of 20 billion marks to begin with. Military hardware was limited and military aircraft were forbidden altogether. The responsibility for the war was officially placed on Germany’s shoulders. The alternative to signing was invasion by the Allies. The treaty was signed on 28 June 1919. The Weimar Republic then proceeded with a doubly poisoned chalice, having betrayed a supposedly undefeated German army and given in to crushing treaty terms. In due course, resentment led to the formation of parties such as the German Racial Freedom Party and the National Socialists under Hitler, based in Munich.

Through the 1920s, there was rampant inflation in Germany and temporary occupation of the Ruhr by French and German troops. In 1925, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg succeeded Ebert as President. In the Pact of Locarno, Germany pledged not to interfere with the borders of either Belgium or France. The treaty was underwritten by Great Britain. The German economy began to pick up towards the end of the 1920s but the issue of substantial war reparations remained. The Nationalists and Nazis demanded that the Government should refuse to pay. By 1929, the Great Depression had struck, giving more fuel to the discontent of the Nazis and Nationalists. Hitler spelled it out at a rally in Munich: ‘We are the result of the distress for which others are responsible.’

On 30 January 1933, Hitler became Chancellor. The next year he declared himself Führer, or supreme leader. On 12 March 1938, German forces entered Austria under the so-called Anschluss, though no formal request had been made for the invasion. Hitler then turned his attention to Czechoslovakia, where he managed to get behind the formidable Czech defences by claiming that he had been invited to take over the Sudetenland. This happened with both French and British connivance as they cravenly conceded to Hitler’s demands in the naive hope that he would not want more. Poland was bound by treaty with Britain and France and when German forces crossed the Polish border on 1 September 1939 there were no further options. The British Empire and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and the Second World War began.

Operation Fall Gelb

The new German plan for the invasion of the Low Countries and France involved two main armies, Army Group A and Army Group B. Army Group A would attack through southern Belgium and then make a move to the north in order to allow in more Allied reserves. Army Group B, meanwhile, would attack through the Ardennes in the south in a surprise thrust against reserve French forces. The plan incorporated the radical ideas of Heinz Guderian,14 who planned to make a radical thrust with his Panzers from the Ardennes up towards the Channel.

However, there were formidable defences and obstacles to be overcome on the Dutch and Belgian borders for which the Germans had devised sophisticated plans. One was the formidable fortress of Ében-Émael. Considered impregnable, it was attacked by elements of the 7th Airborne Division (Student) of the Luftwaffe and the 22nd Infantry Division, an army airborne battalion, mainly embarked on gliders. The units were supported by Luftflotte II under Albert Kesselring. Fort Ében-Émael was armed with two 120mm guns and sixteen 75mm guns in armoured turrets and casemates. It held the right flank of the Belgian line on the Albert Canal. The German glider detachment consisted of forty-two gliders formed under Captain Walter Koch, comprising 424 men, including the pilots. The advantage provided by gliders was that they were totally silent on approach, whereas planes dropping parachutists would have attracted attention. Some German gliders landed among the defences covering the bridges of the Veldweezelt and Vroenhoven. Koch’s men then cut the demolition charge wires to the bridges as well as telephone wires. The other eleven gliders landed directly on top of Fort Ében-Émael. Assault engineers attached explosive charges to the turrets and casemates with about 2½ tons of explosives. After the fort had been neutralised, German reinforcements of the 4th Division soon began to move up, followed by the XVI Panzer Corps and the 6th Army. Once Fort Ében-Émael had surrendered, the Belgian 7th Division was ordered to withdraw. King Leopold of Belgium sent his troops a reassuring if optimistic message:

Our position improves day by day; our ranks are tightening. In the decisive days which lie ahead do not spare yourselves; suffer every sacrifice to halt the invasion. As on the Yser in 1914, the French and British Corps are relying on us; the safety and honour of the country demands it.15

By 15 May, the French 1st Army, deployed between Namur and Wavre, was under attack by the German 6th Army, supported by Stuka dive bombers. The German XI Corps attacked Louvain but was successfully counter-attacked by the British 3rd Division under General Bernard Montgomery.

Further to the south, German forces had even greater success. The thinly spread French forces lacked both anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, which put them at a huge disadvantage when dealing with Stukas and German armour. Major General Erwin Rommel reached Houx on the Meuse and established a small bridgehead that French forces failed to counter-attack effectively. General Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps reached Sedan. Panzergruppe Kleist and XIV Panzer Corps blew a breach through the French 1st Army and more than 2,000 German Panzers began to race towards the Channel. Attempts by French forces to mount a counter-attack were hampered by German bomber attacks on the railway system, effectively sealing off the German area of operations, and by roads filled with panicking refugees.

Fortunately for the Allies, someone else was beginning to panic. His name was Adolf Hitler. With the success of the advance beyond the wildest dreams of German high command, Hitler became concerned that the Panzers might overreach themselves and get bogged down in the softer ground near the Channel coast. On 24 May, therefore, he gave his famous halt order, stopping the Panzers at a line running through Lens, Bethune, St-Omer and Gravelines.

Having surrendered Brussels and Antwerp on 17 May, the Belgian Army continued to hold along a line from the Leopold Canal to the Lys canal where it joined the left flank of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Menin. On 24 May, the German 6th Army broke through at Courtrai, upon which it was counter-attacked by the Belgian 8th Division and 2nd Chasseurs Ardennais. On 25 May the Belgian 12th Division also counter-attacked but found itself short of reserves. British forces, meanwhile, continued to withdraw towards Dunkirk. By 26 May the Belgian Army was under attack on two fronts – it was threatened on its right flank by the German Reichenau Division and on its left by the German 18th Army coming from the direction of Antwerp.

King Leopold realised that Belgian forces could not hold out much longer but, while he sent an envoy to the Germans to discuss surrender terms, he also arranged for the shipment of the French 60th Division to Dunkirk and the blocking of the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge, along with the destruction of the bridges over the Yser. By 28 May the Belgian Army had ceased fire.

Unlike Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who had escaped to England along with the Dutch Government, as commander-in-chief of Belgian forces Leopold chose to remain with his troops. The Belgian Government, however, decamped to London. The continued resistance of the Belgian Army, holding German forces to the east of Dunkirk, had bought valuable time for British, French and Belgian troops to evacuate from Dunkirk. To the south of Dunkirk, French forces of the 1st Army continued to put up a fight, although they were eventually overwhelmed.

On 29 May, more than 47,000 troops were embarked from Dunkirk. These were transported on 850 commercial boats that had been taken over by the British Admiralty along with the thirty-nine destroyers and escorts used in the operation. The boats embarked troops from Dunkirk itself, Malo-les-Bains, Bray-Dunes and De Panne.

On 30 May, 120,000 troops, including 6,000 French soldiers, were embarked for England. On 31 May, this figure rose to 150,000, including about 15,000 French. By 4 June, 113,000 French and Belgian troops had been shipped to England, and on the last four days of the operation 75,000 British and 98,000 French troops were embarked. In total, 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops were saved.

The evacuation craft and ships were attacked by German E-boats and by Stukas, which sank about a quarter of the small craft as well as seven French and six British destroyers. RAF Bomber Command, Fighter Command and Coastal Command flew 2,739 sorties and 651 bombing raids as well as 177 reconnaissance flights. They shot down 262 German aircraft with a loss of 106 of their own.

Not everyone got away, of course. Some units were separated, and some men did not get to the beaches on time. The 51st (Highland) Division, for example, was not part of the BEF that advanced into Belgium. The 51st was instead attached to the French 10th Army and was drawn back to form a defensive line along the Somme, following a line from north-west of Abbeville to the coast. Under sustained German attack, the division withdrew to the river Bresle. After German attacks cut off supply lines, the 51st fell back to Bethune.

As the situation deteriorated, a decision was made to retreat to Le Havre for evacuation and an advance unit called Ark Force was despatched to hold the port, pending the arrival of the rest of the division. However, it soon became clear that the speed of the German advance would make it difficult for the rest of the division to reach Le Havre, let alone embark for England. General Fortune therefore decided to move the division to St-Valery-en-Caux.

By the time they reached St-Valery, under continuous pressure from the Germans, they were short of food and ammunition. Advancing German forces were supported by tanks and the 51st had no anti-tank guns. Its remaining 25pdr guns had been put out of action. On 12 June both the French Chasseurs Alpins and the 51st Highland Division surrendered to avoid further casualties.

Although the Navy had approached St-Valery on 10 June, due to fog and German artillery on the cliffs, it had withdrawn. For the same reasons, evacuation was all but impossible. The Admiralty had despatched sixty-seven merchant ships and 140 small vessels to the St-Valery area. However, there were difficulties in communications and little knowledge among the flotilla about the time and the place for embarkation. When boats were despatched to St-Valery, they came under enemy fire and air attack and withdrew. They then encountered fog, making it even more difficult to communicate with those inland.

A naval officer reported:

I do not, however, consider that any great number would in any case have been evacuated from St-Valery area. On 10th June enemy batteries fired on our ships. By 9.30 on 11th June, the enemy were machine-gunning our ships off St-Valery, and by noon enemy had guns in position on coast to dominate beaches and later on to dominate that part of the town in which our troops were crowded.16

There were some successful efforts by small craft to take men off, however, even under enemy fire. Men were taken off the beaches at Veules-les-Roses and one boat managed to take off eighty men at St-Valery.

Ark Force, having reached Le Havre on 10 June, had been safely embarked. It would form the kernel of the revived 51st that would continue to see action throughout the war, including in North Africa.

Two destroyers despatched from the Le Havre area to St-Valery were HMS Bulldog and HMS Boadicea. On 10 June, the Boadicea picked up sixty soldiers of the 51st and some French civilians. The Bulldog also picked up a boat full of soldiers from further out to sea. The destroyers came under fire from German artillery and tanks on the cliffs above St-Valery but the destroyers fired back with their main armament and silenced the enemy. However, the two destroyers then came under aerial attack from Stukas.

The Boadicea was attacked by eighteen Ju 87 Stukas and sustained three direct hits, which caused many casualties. The Boadicea’s engines were put out of action, but the destroyer Ambuscade approached to take her in tow. The Bulldog was attacked by six Stukas but was less severely damaged and suffered only minor casualties. Although the two destroyers were effectively sitting ducks for a renewed aerial attack, despite the hot June weather a thick fog descended over the ships, sheltering them for the rest of the afternoon and that night. The Boadicea was towed back to Portsmouth by the Ambuscade, while the Bulldog managed to get back to the Isle of Wight under limited power. However, the same fog that had protected the two destroyers from almost certain obliteration also prevented any further attempts to embark more troops.

Captain B.C. Bradford was among those captured and marched east as prisoners of war (PoWs) after the surrender of the 51st (Highland) Division at St-Valery. The weather was extremely hot and the PoWs were given very little food or water by their captors. The Highlanders were already exhausted enough from their fighting retreat to St-Valery and to this was added the fatigue of despondency after being captured. Occasionally the prisoners would break into a local house to get some much-needed water, cider or red wine.17

After long marches and nights in filthy farmyards, Bradford eventually managed to step out of the column and get off the road unnoticed by the German guards. He then made his way to a wood, where he lay down on the swampy ground with his mackintosh over his head to keep off the mosquitoes. When the column had moved on, he managed to get a local to bring him some civilian clothes and then made his way to Boulogne, staying at farms along the way. However, his hopes of finding a boat to take him across the Channel were dashed and the only alternative seemed to be to head south in the hope of reaching Spain.

As he made his way south, Bradford stayed in barns and received hospitality from several locals. Although there were plenty of Germans around, at this stage of the war they were still on the move and a more elaborate system of checks had not yet been established. The Germans were aware that local populations had been displaced by the invasion and that it was not unusual or surprising for civilians to be found outside their locality or without papers. The fact that Bradford did not possess any papers was therefore less of a problem than it might have been.

Having swum across the river Cher that runs across central France, Bradford soon came upon French soldiers, who insisted that he should stay with them. This was an uncomfortable experience for Bradford due to the tensions that existed after the retreat where French troops had sometimes been forcibly prevented from boarding British vessels at Dunkirk as well as at St-Valery. Moving on to Toulouse, he was put in touch with a guide who would provide him with directions over the Pyrenees. After a difficult climb during which they encountered some snow, the pair crossed the Spanish border at Port de Baroude, south-west of Lourdes in the central Pyrenees. They then descended to the Cirque de Barrosa. When they reached a track at the bottom of a steep incline, they heard a shout behind them. The Guardia Civil told them to get back over the border on Franco’s orders. When they protested, they were taken to see a local mayor, who happened to be an anti-British Falangist.

Having been pushed back over the frontier, Bradford managed to find another guide who was prepared to help him over the mountains for money. He was arrested again by the Spanish authorities and taken to a concentration camp at Monferran-Savès. After whatever diplomatic alchemy had taken place, he eventually found his way to Algiers and from there to Gibraltar.18

Bradford was not, of course, the only one to have been left behind after the Dunkirk evacuations. Including the 51st (Highland) Division, 68,000 soldiers were not evacuated, including the hospitalised, wounded and those who died. Many soldiers tried to make their way home independently, either before capture by the Germans or after escaping from captivity during the long marches towards the PoW camps in Germany.

British troops of the BEF who had advanced into Belgium ran into the retreating Belgian Army and soon found themselves beating a hasty retreat. They had had little time to establish strong defensive positions in Belgium like the ones that had been built in France. The retreating soldiers were mixed up with large columns of civilian evacuees and the columns were attacked regularly by German aircraft.

Between 16 and 19 May, the withdrawal had moved rapidly from the Dyle Line to the Escaut Line, with somewhat desperate rearguard actions being fought to give the engineers time to demolish bridges. The Sussex Regiment, West Kent Regiment and The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) were systematically bombed and shelled at Mont des Cats before continuing their retreat towards Dunkirk. In these engagements men became separated from their units, some were captured and some managed to evade.

The temporary setback suffered by the advancing Panzers at Arras and the halt order given by Hitler played alongside British and French efforts to reinforce and defend the Channel ports, mainly Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk. On 21 and 22 May, British reinforcements under Brigadier Nicholson in the form of 30th Infantry Brigade (2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 1st Rifle Brigade and 1st Queen Victoria’s Rifles, supplemented by 3rd Tank Regiment and 29th Anti-Tank Battery) arrived in Calais. Queen Victoria’s Rifles were deployed into the surrounding countryside to block the approaches to the town. Their mission had been set out rather starkly by the Rt Hon. Sir Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War: ‘Defence of Calais to utmost is of vital importance to our country and BEF and as showing our continued co-operation with France.’19

There was plenty of cause for concern for the British garrison at Calais in these words, which continue to be at the centre of a controversy over whether the defence of Calais ‘to the utmost’ or the need to show ‘co-operation with France’ was necessary. Whether at Calais or anywhere else, defensive efforts only had a realistic hope of slowing the inevitable German advance rather than stopping it in its tracks. Calais came to be seen as a political pawn to be played off against the French, if not a lamb for sacrifice. What is not in doubt is that British and French forces did indeed defend the port town to the utmost. As the German 1st Panzer Division approached from the south, outlying forces beat a fighting retreat into the centre of the town, where Nicholson realised he would have to concentrate his defence. The garrison, mostly centred on the citadel, endured German shelling and ground attacks as well as aerial bombing by Stukas for four days. By Sunday 26 May, the Germans were beginning to occupy the north of the town while groups of British riflemen put up a stiff defence street by street to slow their advance. By 3 p.m., however, the garrison had been overwhelmed.

Although a handful of British troops had been taken off a jetty by a British yacht, Brigadier Nicholson had been forbidden from embarking his brigade and the chance of saving hundreds of British troops from death or imprisonment.

Fortunately for the defenders of Boulogne, the same did not apply to them. By 22 May, Boulogne had been reinforced by 20th Guards Brigade (Welsh and Irish Guards) under Brigadier William Fox-Pitt. The port was also defended by French and Belgian soldiers. The Guards had enough time to dig defensive positions before the German 2nd Panzer Corps attacked. By 23 May, the outlying defences had been pushed back into the town while about eighty RAF light bombers of the Advanced Air Striking Force provided support as British and French destroyers bombarded German positions. On 23 May the Guards brigade was ordered to embark and Royal Navy destroyers, including HMS Venomous and HMS Windsor, braved the fire of German artillery as they entered the port, which had already been damaged by the Luftwaffe. Not all the British troops made it to the port in time for the embarkation. The 3rd Company, Welsh Guards, under Major Windsor-Lewis had been cut off from the rest of the battalion. Windsor-Lewis organised a sterling defence of the Gare Maritime, but eventually they were overwhelmed and forced to surrender.