Flames over France (12 page)

Chapter Eight

THE ROAD TO DUNKIRK: SOLDIERS’ TALES

Along the narrow roads, strafed and dive-bombed, tortured by thirst and the pangs of hunger, the khaki columns streamed back towards Dunkirk. Ahead of them, trailing its sombre cloak across the May sky by day and providing a lurid beacon by night, was the funeral pyre of the town; behind them the rumble of battle as the rearguard actions continued; and on all sides reeking debris and corpses.

Despite the confusion, despite the exhaustion, despite the agony of blistered, lacerated feet and the burden of equipment that weighed like lead, despite the uncertainty and fear, most units — whether of company strength or split up into small parties — maintained a high degree of cohesion and discipline. And through the haze of fatigue, the nightmare of that march back to the salvation of the English Channel would etch itself indelibly into the minds of many.

The sun shines; the sky is a cloudless blue. The Luftwaffe is everywhere, smashing everything that moves. We are surrounded by field guns, and we share with the gunners ninety minutes of dive-bombing Stukas: the terror weapon. Helpless, we cower in the ditches and pray. Hedge-hopping fighters machine gun us — spurts of dust in the road — whoosh of flame and smoke from stricken vehicles. Noise. Smoke. Flame. Why are we here? How did we reach this place? We know that the Boche has cut our routes to the south and west and is assaulting also from the north and east, but we do not accept these facts because we do not want to accept them. As a unit we are now valueless except as individuals with rifles — any time now we may find a desperate use for these. The day wears slowly on; we wait for we know not what. We are very frightened.

Then, at 1700 hours, orders! Smash all equipment, burn all secret documents. Make for the coast and report to the Navy! Never in British history has that phrase seemed so important. To our young ears it means salvation — if only we can make the coast. We set off in the warm, sunny afternoon back to Armentieres, through Comines and on to Messines Ridge, where we are held up by a squadron of Belgian cavalry. Incredible to see horse soldiers! On along the hot, dusty road towards Ypres, turning off for Poperinghe.

We pushed on, throwing all wrecked instruments, clothing, the ashes of documents, gas cylinders, anything that could be abandoned, into the roadside ditches. On across the 1914-18 battlefields into which our fathers had poured their blood, holding on against the same enemy; bitter thoughts. Shortly before midnight we arrived in Hoogstade, where all small vehicles were wrecked and abandoned and we devoured our last scraps of food. After an hour or so we all crammed into the larger vehicles and set off through the night for Bulscamp. It was a night of fatigue and frustration, with tired drivers cursing and each of us wrapped in his own private cocoon of fear, doubt, and thoughts of home.

We reached Bulscamp late in the morning and were issued with messy coloured water which the cooks called tea. Now the ordeal really began, for we were ordered to split up into parties of twenty-five and make a forced march to Teteghem, east of Dunkirk. Laden with small arms, ammunition and the kit of some officer — severe doubts cast on his parentage — our party set out for the sea.

There was little doubt about the point we were making for; away to the north-east rose a vast plume of smoke.

Our leader was an attached officer of the French Military Mission, armed with a map torn from a school atlas. This gentleman succeeded twice in leading us astray, but on both occasions units of the RAOC and RASC turned us back from the direction in which we were heading, which would have brought us into contact with the enemy, and set us on the right road. A captain of the RASC was deeply suspicious and suggested that we took steps to eliminate him, this being no time for squeamishness. We managed to ditch him further along the road.

At Teteghem, we were allowed thirty minutes’ rest and some food — two 12-ounce tins of bully beef between the twenty-five of us, plus two hardtack biscuits per man. On these scant provisions, exhausted in mind and body, torn between despair and hope, we renewed our march to the outskirts of Dunkirk and made our way through the rubble to the sand dunes beyond. Against the darkening sky the flames of the burning town were reflected in the sullen canals and waterways, silhouetting other marching groups.

We passed a battery of destroyed anti-aircraft guns, their barrels split open and curled back like sticks of celery. Over everything hung the towering pall of black smoke from the burning oil tanks, stretching across the western horizon. Forward we stumbled, a cursing, motley crew, calling upon our ebbing physical and mental strength to push one foot in front of the other, some of us with boots that squelched blood. So we came to the dunes, where we halted, to fall and sleep in the sand and the coarse grass.

—
An RAF airman, a member of ground crew, caught up in the retreat to Dunkirk;28 May, 1940

In the early hours the section I was in was ordered back to a farmhouse on a small hill. Things were rather quiet at first, but about 3 am we came under shellfire that grew more intense as time went by, and at dawn the enemy were within small-arms range. Soon afterwards we were told to go down to the forward positions to help strengthen the line. As we left the farmhouse the enemy started belting us with the most accurate mortar fire I have ever seen. There were six of us, and the bombs were actually falling among us as we ran. It was impossible to take more than one or two strides before a fresh bomb sent us face down in the dirt. I saw one man with his hand sliced clean off. They mortared us all the way down the slope until we reached the breastworks at the bottom; they had been built during the 1914-18 war and formed our main defences. Our arrival was greeted by an enemy observation plane, which dropped a smoke marker almost on our heads — the signal for more mortar fire.

Not long afterwards a stream of chaps came along from B Company, or what was left of them; they said that the Germans had overrun No. 1 Platoon and that now there was nothing to prevent the breaking through en masse. Our officers, Captain Rylands and Lieutenant Partridge, conferred and decided to pull us out to higher ground, as we had no chance of holding our present positions.

As we started to move out the Germans let go with everything they had — artillery, mortars, Spandaus. The concentration of fire was terrific. The only way to reach the high ground was through a group of cottages straddling the road a couple of hundred yards away; the fields around were lined with fine-mesh wire fences and we would have been picked off easily as we tried to get over them. So we doubled off down the road, about two hundred of us I suppose, all making for one house in particular which seemed to have a large garden; we intended to work our way through it from front to rear.

Just as we reached the house down came the mortar bombs, right in among us. I was well to the rear, and as I crept closer I could see a group of men struggling to get through the garden gate. Smoke and flames were everywhere and the ground shuddered with explosions. I looked up again, and suddenly it seemed that everyone else had gone and that I was alone; a terrifying feeling. Then, as I crawled nearer the gate, I saw a man lying in a pool of water. He had been badly hit in the back. I got him out of the water and laid him by the side of the road. He didn’t want me to leave him and clung to me as hard as he could. There was nothing I could do, and my fear of being taken prisoner was strong. In the end, muttering something about going to get help, I left the poor chap and threw myself under cover on the other side of the road.

I inched along on this side until I was opposite the garden gate, then dashed across the road again and through into the garden. There was a fearful mess all around the gate; men had been killed ten times over, their bodies ripped apart by the mortar bombs. I went into the garden; there wasn’t a soul in sight and I had no idea where they had gone, so I thought I would just keep going in a straight line and hope for the best.

After going a short way I came upon a soldier who was terribly wounded in the waist area. The legs of his trousers were soaked in blood; there wasn’t a patch of khaki to be seen. I asked him which way the others had gone; he showed me and off I went. Away on the hill ahead I could see a lot of smoke and shellbursts, and I guessed that was where our chaps would be. A few moments later I spotted a line of lorries, looking just like toys as they moved along the road that wound up the hillside. A terrible panic seized me; I thought Christ, they’re going off without me, and I started to run. Although I was pretty well exhausted the running caused me no effort at all. It seemed as though my legs didn’t belong to me.

After a while I staggered into a little hamlet near the foot of the hill, where to my relief I came across two of my mates, Tom Calow and Johnny Kemble. There was a fearful barrage in progress; it was absolutely pouring with mortar bombs and those terrible shrapnel shells. Compared with that the bullets didn’t amount to much really; nobody took much notice of them.

We made our way along a ditch to a farm where Company HQ had been set up. Most of the chaps who were left had assembled there. We were reformed to make a counter-attack. There didn’t seem to be much point in it really, but we set off just the same, advancing down to the valley until we came out on to a track where we took cover among some trees. My friend Tom had gone to the top of the hill with Lieutenant ‘Ginger’ Partridge; sometime later he came running back with two bullets in his side. He was a little tough sort of kid, but he was sweating quite a bit and I advised him to take off his equipment and make his way back to HQ before he became too weak. He pushed his way into a hayfield and that was the last I ever saw of him.

We were unable to continue the advance, for the enemy had gained some high ground on either side and we were caught in a crossfire. There was no alternative but to pull out. Our advance had brought us down to where the soldier with the bloodstained trousers lay, and we brought him out with us. Our only avenue of escape lay along a ditch that bordered the track. It was broken at intervals by gateways where other tracks led into the fields on either side. The leading group of men reached the first of these openings, raised themselves out of the ditch and started to make their way across. It looked as though they were going to make it when suddenly the Spandaus opened up and cut them to ribbons.

I could see men still trying to run across among all that murderous fire, but I stayed where I was until things quietened down a bit and then I crawled over, sheltering behind the bodies of the poor devils who lay in the gateway. I got back into the ditch, which was full of crawling men. It was very shallow and the Spandaus were pecking away at us all the time; as soon as you raised your head you drew a burst of fire, and every time a man was hit in front of you, you had to crawl over the top of him, which made you still more vulnerable. There were about six gateways, with tracks traversing the ditch, and every time you came to one you had to get up and take a flying leap to the other side. Every opening had those hellish machine-guns trained on it. When it came to my turn I made a terrific leap, aiming to land a few yards along the ditch; land short, and the odds were that you would come down on top of someone, in which case the machine-guns would have you.

I crawled on up the ditch, together with the other survivors. Suddenly, I was almost sick. In front if my face lay a man’s liver, still steaming. I eased myself over it carefully and went on. It must have taken us three hours to crawl along that ditch. In the end I reached the last gateway, and prepared to make my usual flying leap. Perhaps I was over-confident; perhaps I didn’t move fast enough. At any rate, as I jumped a Spandau got me in the leg. I landed heavily, swearing hard — not so much because of the pain, but because I thought my leg was broken. I found that I could still move it, however, so things didn’t seem quite so bad.

Those of us that were left eventually got back to the farm and Lieutenant Partridge led us back to our transport, which was waiting some way further back. The enemy shellfire was not so intense now, because it was dusk and the valley was filled with drifting smoke from the barrage they had been putting up all day. It helped to screen us from the enemy guns.

We boarded the lorries and went away into the night. Lots of times, as we drove on, we heard the cries of wounded men, begging us to stop. But there was no stopping; nobody was really interested in the wounded. It was the fit men who mattered now. And so, filthy, exhausted and bloodstained, we made our way back towards Furnes on the Dunkirk perimeter.

We hadn’t been there long when an officer came along and crawled into the lorry, wanting to know how many men there were with rifles. Nobody answered him. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘Senior NCOs!’ Still nobody moved. He got a torch and shone it into the face of a sergeant, then on the face of each man in turn. After a long pause he nodded, as though in sympathy, and left. It wasn’t cowardice on their part, when they didn’t answer; it was just the fact that human beings can have just about enough. If you are hungry, exhausted and shell-shocked you just don’t want any more.

That was where I left them, and that was where they made their last stand.

I went down to the hospital at La Panne, with the huge Red Cross flag flying over it. Until now I had never really believed all the stories about Dunkirk, and evacuation; but now that I saw the sea I began to have an inkling that they might be true after all …

—
A soldier of the 4th Battalion, the Royal Berkshire Regiment, 29 May 1940

It was dark when we reached the sandhills and we were very tired. The day before, or it might have been the day before that, guncotton and detonators had been issued with orders to blow up the guns. Since then the purpose of our existence had changed. We were no longer a fighting force but simply a unit moving back towards the coast.