• • • • • • • • • • •
Orders for the mobilisation of the Army came through on 1 September 1939. Hudson went to France with his brigade, which consisted of three battalions – the North Staffordshire, the Gordon Highlanders and the Loyals, and they found themselves in an extension of the famous Maginot Line. Their anti-tank guns did not fit into the French pillboxes and they had to borrow French guns and ammunition – an extra complication to an already complicated situation. Eventually it became clear that there were three possibilities: to remain where they were and allow the Germans to march through Belgium without hindrance; to advance into Belgium to support the Belgian Army, possibly right up to their far border; or to advance to the River Dyle, 15 miles beyond Brussels, in order to hold positions which the Belgians were said to have prepared. The Belgians were terrified of not being entirely neutral and no reconnaissance of the positions was allowed. It was even very difficult to get maps.
Attached to my Headquarters were three French liaison officers and they represented very clearly three attitudes of mind. One was a university professor. He, I was told, was communist in leaning, though I thought it would be truer to say of him that he was merely anti-fascist. The second was a cheerful, good-natured bourgeois whose main concern was making the most of the present by finding as quickly as possible the best-looking girl in any village where we happened to be. The third was a serious-minded young royalist. One might say that the mind of the first centred on France, the second on Paris, the third on the French Empire as a whole.
The day before Armistice Day I received an invitation from the chairman of the committee of old soldiers of our small town to lay a wreath at 11 a.m. at the town war memorial. This I was about to accept when the university professor warned me to be careful. He then explained that in the town were two opposing sections of the community, and that the Mayor’s invitation would shortly arrive, requesting me to lay a wreath at the memorial at 12 noon. It appeared that there were two factions in the town bitterly opposed to one another. What exactly the quarrel between the factions was I never gathered, but I now realise it was largely between the fascists and the communists. My first inclination was to accept the Mayor’s invitation, as he was the official head of the town, but I was told that it happened he was also the leader of one faction and by doing so I would appear to be in sympathy with his particular party. In the end I took my own line and said, I hope politely, but quite firmly, that I would only attend any ceremony if both parties were present at the same time.
This ultimatum was accepted, and at the memorial on the following day the two parties were lined up, glowering at each other. As soon as the ceremony was over the parties made for their particular café and I had to visit them both to drink their health. All this might have been amusing had we merely been observers, but, in fact, we were considerably more, for this divided France was our chief ally in the face of a German attack and, on land, very much the senior ally.
Before long we began to get visits from ENSA theatrical parties, led by some prominent professional entertainers. One of these was giving a show in Amiens and I asked them to lunch with us on a Sunday in a café in our town. Their bus arrived in the square just as the populace, in deep black, was coming out from mass. They stood on the steps of the church to watch the arrival in bewildered and shocked astonishment. I had reinforced my own staff with a number of young Gordon Highlander subalterns who were billeted nearby. The young ladies of the ENSA party appeared in bright blouses and tight trousers of every hue, the Gordon Highlanders in kilts. Never in the history of the town, in peace or war, had the townspeople seen women in trousers and men in skirts. Like typical Englishmen we were inclined to take pride in foreigners thinking us mad; in practice they thought us uncouth.
Hudson’s brigade was training on the Somme when, on 10 May 1940, Hitler’s armies attacked Belgium. It was decided to take the third option: advance to the River Dyle in Belgium. Having returned to their original positions, the brigade had a six-and-a-half-hour transport lift along the crowded roads leading to the frontier. They passed through Brussels, one battalion becoming completely lost at night in the maze of backstreets. Some of the inhabitants of the city welcomed the British as their saviours but others, as it turned out correctly, expected the Germans to advance through Belgium without much trouble. They thought that, as in the First World War, their city would be occupied by the Germans again with all that implied. Hudson was billeted on a professor of the University of Brussels during the first night of the advance up to the Dyle.
He had recently lost his wife and was living with his two very attractive daughters. The professor had no illusions, either about the French or his own countrymen. He had been through the first war and had had no faith in the possibility of his country remaining neutral in a second war. During dinner he tried to maintain a reasonably cheerful view of the future but when the two girls withdrew he broke down. What chance, he said, had his daughters of coming through an inevitable occupation? Nothing he could say, he told me, would induce his daughters to leave the doomed city. The townspeople had not even been allowed to provide themselves with shelters from bombing or adequate black-out arrangements for fear of offending the Germans. The small British Army, gallant fighters as they might be, he said, were just walking into a trap. They would have to retire as certainly as they had had to withdraw from Mons in the first war. The Germans would then march in. I tried not to agree with him, but felt on uncomfortably insecure ground.
When they reached the frontage of the River Dyle assigned to Hudson’s brigade it happened that a battalion of his old regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, was temporarily holding it. The handover went smoothly. The river itself was hardly more than a stream, but it was being dammed back in sections so that it would rise enough to make it more of a tank obstacle. However, this had not yet been done and it remained a minor obstacle to a major attack. Two bridges had been prepared for demolition.
As always, Hudson looked for positive, even aggressive solutions to military problems and he decided that the best defence would be to make a night attack on the German boats and transport that would have to be brought up. The timing of such an operation was clearly most important. A plan was worked out and the raiding party was briefed.
It was not long before refugees began to appear. A post was established on the road to give them water but there was nothing else that could be done to help them. Hudson describes the scene.
Watching the post one evening I saw family after family limping by, the strained white-faced, half-starved mother, the trail of tired children, the old granny perched perhaps with pathetic household goods on a ramshackle cart drawn by an underfed horse. Pushcarts, perambulators, stern-faced nuns in charge of an exhausted crocodile of children: all were struggling blindly on in the fond hope that Brussels, their capital city, would be able to give them food and shelter.
It was on the Dyle that I heard for the first time the almost continuous lowing of cattle that seemed the ominous background music of the whole subsequent retreat. Those who would normally have milked the cows had fled and the wretched animals were suffering the agony of over-full udders. My driver, a countryman, used to milk cows to save them pain whenever he could, as did many other country-bred soldiers.
The next day Hudson motored forward to get in touch with the commanding officer of the 12th Royal Lancers, Lieutenant Colonel Lumsden, whose regiment was providing a screen for the whole of the British Army. The news was bad. The enemy had broken through and the divisional cavalry, the 13th/18th Hussars, were withdrawing and would have to cross the bridge over the Dyle, which was being guarded by Hudson’s brigade. When they had all crossed Hudson was to order the bridge to be blown. If the situation was unclear, however, Hudson was to use his own discretion. One troop of the Hussars was still missing when the Germans approached the scene and Hudson blew the bridge.
It proved to be only just in time, for as the order was given two enemy motorbikes and sidecars drove down the causeway at full speed, their machine guns blazing. The first jumped the causeway as our men opened fire, 20yds from the bridge, throwing the rider clear. The second was hit and burst into flames. A German officer, thrown into the water, put up his hands and began wading towards our men but his own compatriot opened fire on him from the far bank and killed him. A wounded NCO, probably the rider of the first bike, was brought in by our men after dark and, though severely wounded, and dying when he reached my headquarters, he continued to repeat ‘Heil Hitler’ in a weaker and weaker voice until he died. I could only admire these brave men. There were, of course, those, as always, who were prepared to dismiss their sublime courage as mere fanaticism, but had they been our men they would have been heroes.
During that afternoon an order was received from a whole division to withdraw that night because a major breakthrough on the French army front had occurred. Hudson asked for permission to carry out his raid but this was refused. The withdrawal began.
Hudson’s brigade then began an almost continual withdrawal to Dunkirk. After one day’s hard marching General Alexander arrived on the scene and told Hudson how serious the news was. Enemy columns were bypassing his brigade through the gap made by the breakthrough on the French front. The march would have to continue at once if they were not to be cut off. Very few men or officers had had any sleep, but they had to carry on through Brussels to the next defensible position on the River Senne.
The city of Brussels was panic-stricken. Thousands of people were trying to get into the station hoping to escape by train. Three elderly Englishwomen begged Hudson to help them escape on one of the Army lorries, but he had to refuse. Once civilians were allowed to travel with the soldiers there would be no limit and the Army would have ceased to be a fighting machine.
They spent the whole of 18 May on the River Senne and, though shelled, saw little of the enemy.
This was the first time since leaving the Dyle that I had been able to get four consecutive hours’ sleep. We were then told to withdraw again. The men were nearing the limit of their endurance and it was an agony to see them plodding on, scarcely able to put one foot in front of the other. . . . Heartbreaking as it was, I was astonished at the cheerfulness and humour that still persisted as it always does when British troops are really up against it.
Their next line of defence was the River Dendre, which they reached just in time to prevent the enemy from encircling them. They were then told to withdraw again.
It is not possible to imagine a more unmilitary manoeuvre than the one that followed throughout that day. On the right of the road my three battalions and on the left the three battalions of the Guards Brigade; all our transports filled the centre of the road. Refugee petrol-less cars were being pitched into ditches and refugees in thousands pouring from side roads had to be stopped and turned back. Overhead, flocks of enemy planes were passing over. Very few of these actually attacked us, but the threat was continually apparent, and later we were to see the targets further down the road which they were bombing.
Eventually they met up with some troop carriers with a young major in charge. ‘He confirmed that he had been ordered to pick us up and before he could say more I began cursing him for failure to carry out his orders. To my consternation he collapsed and burst into tears. He was deadbeat, and I felt remorseful at my display of ill temper.’ They managed to go some way with these troop carriers before they had to start marching again. ‘At one point a refugee column of carts had been caught on the road by enemy aircraft. The sight was so appalling that my intelligence officer who was with me and I nearly vomited.’
A little later in the withdrawal, Hudson organised a counterattack to be undertaken by the North Staffordshire Regiment. This was followed by a successful raid by the Loyal Regiment and the Gordons during which some enemy prisoners were captured. Hudson was pleased to note that they, too, seemed utterly exhausted. At last a little respite came when the brigade spent four comparatively quiet days in the town of Lannoy.
While we were there, enemy aeroplanes dropped pamphlets, written in English, on us. These announced that we were surrounded, the Belgians had capitulated and that we had better surrender to prevent further casualties. This was the first we had heard of a Belgian surrender. The men thought this a bad attempt at a bluff, though in fact it was truer than we thought at the time. The houses in our area were still full of civilian women and children, and during the afternoon and next morning we used our transport to carry them back to comparative safety. . . . There were some pitiful scenes, but it was the best we could do for these poor people. They, of course, largely blamed us for bringing the war to their town.
The withdrawal, or retreat would be a better word, continued. The situation became more and more chaotic as a mass of vehicles jammed the roads, which were already full of refugees. At one stage, as the brigade was awaiting an anticipated German attack,
a thunderstorm had been working up, and now as I was walking round studying the country and talking to the men, one of the heaviest downpours of rain I have ever known in Europe came down. This terrific storm, and the continuous heavy rain that followed, has been said to have saved the British Army at various points along the line of retreat. What effect it really had on the exhausted Germans I do not know, but the anticipated attack on my Brigade certainly never materialised.
There are always those who are prepared to attribute results in war to supernatural phenomena. The Angels of Mons and the Miracle of Dunkirk are cases in point. In fact, it is the continuing resolution of leaders, and led, which counts. Had the Germans been resolute enough to press on with their encirclement in spite of difficulties, they could have cut off our line of retreat. Had we had the resolution to fight our way through in spite of this, we still would have reached our objective, the coast. During the next few days I was to see many of every rank, up to and including General officers who had failed in resolution and who were obviously thinking or beginning to think more of their own personal safety, or chances of escape, than of holding out against the enemy.
The retreat continued.
My Staff Captain, who had gone ahead, had found as a Headquarters a farmhouse down a small side road. It had cover trenches near it, presumably dug by previous occupants. As it got light I directed my troops into various areas and, on arrival at the farmhouse, found to my delight a kindly hostess and her grown-up daughter had put some coffee on to boil. I was very cold and wet, and thankful to accept, when an air-raid warning was sounded. Looking out we saw about fifteen enemy aeroplanes flying over. They turned and, one after the other, began to peel off and dive-bomb us. The next ten minutes I and a few others spent in terror of our lives under the shelter of a haystack while bombs rained down. My shame was considerable when, on returning to the house, I found the two women had never left their kitchen. On our reappearance they presented us with cups of steaming coffee.
I asked them why they had not gone into one of the trenches and they shrugged their shoulders and said they could not spare the time. In any case, wherever they went, they might be hit and they might as well stay at least warm in the house.
On the 29 May (Hudson’s forty-eighth birthday) Hudson was leading his brigade marching on foot which, as far as he was concerned, was becoming very painful, when he was summoned to divisional headquarters. Arriving on the back of a motorcycle, he was told to go ahead as fast as he could to organise a defence of the inner canal near Bray-les-Dunes and take command of any troops he found there. He had picked up an engineer sergeant and was riding on the back of his motorcycle at speed down an open stretch road towards Bray,
when some British soldiers on the road held up their hands and shouted to us to stop. I told the Sergeant to disregard them, and then suddenly I realised we were approaching a bridge. As we shot by the horrified soldiers we saw the bridge had been blown. Sappers had filled in most of the gap with planks, but had left, or not yet put in, the centre ones. There was no time to pull up and the Sergeant instead accelerated. This was the first and only time I have ever leapt a gap on the back of a motorbike. The Sergeant and I cheered as we swept through the astonished sappers on the far side. It was a very exhilarating experience.
Alexander had told Hudson that Bray had been given to him as his divisional area and that no French troops would be allowed to occupy it – but French troops were swarming round the bridge. An unorganised rabble of British soldiers was clamouring to cross the canal. These were heavy gunners, Royal Army Service Corps drivers, Pay Corps clerks, bakers, etc. They were all corps and army troops who are to be found in the back blocks of an army. Eventually an ordered situation was established and Hudson’s brigade was in position on the line of the canal, which ran parallel and about three-quarters of a mile from the sea.
After a very smelly night in a pigsty, Hudson was woken to be told to send a battalion to Bergues where the enemy were said to be breaking through the division. The only battalion available in Hudson’s brigade was the Loyal Regiment which was totally exhausted. Hudson went to see Alexander who, by this time, had assumed command of the corps, and tried to have the order changed. Alexander, however, ‘remained calm but said he had no other alternative but to send them’. In spite of their exhaustion, the Loyals marched to Bergues and established a holding position there. Hudson sent a message to the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Sandie: ‘Well done, John. If other blokes could do the sort of thing the Loyals have done, it wouldn’t be necessary to ask the Loyals to do the things they do. . . . Tell them all how well I think they have done.’ Hudson went to the Esplanade at Dunkirk to tell Alexander all was well.
There I met many officers whom I had not seen for years, now in various staffs and commands. One after another found themselves without anything to do except bemoan their fate and that of the British Army. The defeatist attitude was infuriating. The talk was entirely confined to our chances of being evacuated and how soon. I still just could not or would not bring myself to believe that the whole British Army was going to scuttle out of France. Surely, I thought, the French would be able to make some sort of comeback now, as seemed almost certain, the Germans had outstripped their administrative follow-up.
It was obvious that the rabble on the beaches, who had no fighting value and were merely an encumbrance, should be evacuated, but why could we not hold on at least as a thorn in the flesh to the German advance further into France? Could we not, after a rest, break out and rescue a great part of the valuable equipment we had left littering the roads? Would not our presence help in the submarine war? . . . In fact there was very little bombing or machine-gunning of the troops ashore that I heard or saw for the enemy bombers, rightly from their point of view, reserved their efforts, such as they were, more for the ships out at sea or just offshore. . . . I only went to see the beaches once. They were a depressing sight. Thousands of British soldiers, many unarmed (for quite a high proportion of line communication soldiers were not then armed with rifles), blackened the foreshore. They were just waiting to be removed, and one had the feeling that they felt no shame that this was so.
Our splendid 1st Division sappers had cleverly constructed an improvised quay capable of receiving small boats. This was done by running lorries head-to-tail out to sea at low tide and planking a roadway along the top of the cabins. The calm sea was a mass of every sort of shipping and small boats were ploughing to and from the larger ones taking on men. Some men were wading out to sea to meet the boats.
Hudson was then told to embark his brigade from the mole (a long pier) at Dunkirk. The rest of the division were to stay on another day and embark the following night. ‘A deep cloud of frustration, anger and depression came over me at the thought of slinking away in the night and leaving others to face the music. At least it would have been some consolation to have been the last to go.’ He and his brigade set off to try to find the mole.
We had no large-scale map and we only saw one individual in our hunt for the harbour, a French civilian slinking along probably on the look-out for loot. We asked for the boats and he waved us vaguely on but was very uncommunicative.
As we were walking down a wharf inside the harbour area, we came on a jumble of driver-less ambulances. I heard someone tapping on the sides of one and we rushed to open the back. It was full of wounded, moaning and asking for water. Horrified we opened ambulance after ambulance. They all contained wounded men. We could find no one about, and we hurried on for help, angry at the callous desertion of their charges by the drivers and attendants.
We met a quartermaster of one of the battalions, himself searching for the mole, who said his battalion was at least an hour’s march behind. The mole, which I discovered later was about a kilometre long, was jammed to capacity with sleeping officers and men. I was told the Naval officer in charge of the embarkation was at the far end of the mole. It seemed to take an age to thread my way over the sleeping forms of the soldiery, but near the end there was a gap in the mole over which a single plank had been placed and here I found a Naval sentry.
The Naval captain had heard about the wounded, but said he had just received a message that one of the three hospital ships had been sunk as it stood out waiting for the tide to enable it to get alongside. No more ships of any kind would come in for the troops until the tide rose and after this there would be very few hours of daylight left. His orders were to abandon daylight loading, owing to the heavy casualties already suffered in daylight from air attacks.
I suggested he should at least take the wounded, but he said that even if I could arrange to carry them up, which I said I would do, taking one stretcher meant leaving at least three unwounded men behind. The Army would have to decide this point. Returning, I found a Royal Army Medical Corps officer. He was only a regimental doctor who had himself brought his wounded in by ambulance but he said he had at last found a responsible RAMC officer who was in the process of trying to organise the care of the wounded in their ambulances. With this, though far from happy, I left him to it and returned to my own business of getting my own men ready to embark. I had found there were long gaps in the mole between units where the men had just dropped down and it was nearing daylight. My first job was to rouse and close up the queue.
Eventually, through the chaos, Hudson’s brigade reached their objective.
At the end of the mole I stood and watched my battalions being hustled onboard. They were tightly packed on deck, shoulder to shoulder. The Naval officers refused to allow the men to keep their rifles owing to the delay in getting them down the rope ladders onto the decks. Our men were very angry and being made to stack the rifles they had carried mile after mile but my protests to the Naval embarkation officer only met with the statement that this was an Admiralty order. I myself, and my own headquarter officers and men, went aboard a Monitor. The Captain could not have been kinder. We had not been long out to sea when I noticed a lot of signalling from the Mole to the ship. I asked the Captain what all this was all about. The message, marked very urgent, was in code from the Admiralty and its decoding had caused a considerable flutter amongst the Monitor officers. It turned out that enquiries were being made as to whether we had Lord Gort’s ADC on board, and, if so, whether he had the General’s kit. Life, I felt, was already coming back to normal.
On arrival in England Hudson protested by telephone to the War Office that his men were being ordered to leave their arms in France. He was told the order had been cancelled more than once already but they would try again. He was told that the train he was about to join at Dover was to go to York where the 1st Division would assemble. He sent a telegram to his wife who was living in the New Forest: ‘Arrived Dover safely. Go to York’.
In fact the train went to Aberystwyth, but his wife took a train to York. Eventually Hudson contacted her at the Station Hotel. ‘She found me fast asleep in an hotel in London, after two ghastly train journeys up and down England on two consecutive nights and endless attempts to get in touch with me. But all that was soon forgotten on our reunion.’