ON THE 2ND COLDSTREAM Guards’ segment of the defense line along the Bergues-Furnes Canal, Lieutenant Jimmy Langley waited in the cottage he had so carefully fortified and stocked with provisions. He had no idea when the British planned to pull out—company officers weren’t privy to such things—but his men were ready for a long siege. In the first light of the new day, June 1, Langley looked through the peephole he had made in the roof, but could see nothing. A thick mist hung over the canal and the flat meadows to the south.
Sunrise. The mist burned off, and there—600 yards away on the other side of the canal—stood a working party of German troops. There were perhaps 100 of them, armed only with spades, and what their assignment was, Langley never knew. A blaze of gunfire from the cottage mowed them down—the last “easy” Germans he would meet that day.
The firing steadily increased as the enemy troops joined in. At one point they wheeled up an antitank gun, and Langley watched with interest as they pointed it right at his cottage. A few seconds later an antitank shell came crashing through the roof, ricocheting wildly about the attic. The Coldstreamers tumbled down the stairs and out the front door as four more shells arrived. The enemy fire slackened off, and Langley’s men reoccupied their fortress.
The big danger lay to the right. At 11:00 a.m. General von Kuechler launched his “systematic attack,” and around noon the enemy stormed across the canal just east of Bergues. The 1st East Lancashires were forced back and might have been overrun completely but for the prodigious valor of a company commander, Captain Ervine-Andrews. Gathering a handful of volunteers, he climbed to the thatched roof of a barn and held off the Germans with a Bren gun.
Just to the left of the East Lanes were the 5th Borderers. Now across the canal in strength, the enemy smashed at them too. If they collapsed, the 2nd Coldstream, to their left, would be hit next. An officer from the Borderers hurried over to Major McCorquodale’s command post to warn that his battalion was exhausted and about to withdraw.
“I order you to stay put and fight it out,” the Major answered.
“You cannot do that. I have overriding orders from my colonel to withdraw when I think fit.”
McCorquodale saw no point in arguing: “You see that big poplar tree on the road with the white milestone beside it? The moment you or any of your men go back beyond that tree, we will shoot you.”
The officer again protested, but the Major had had enough. “Get back or I will shoot you now and send one of my officers to take command.”
The Borderer officer went off, and McCorquodale turned to Langley, standing nearby: “Get a rifle. Sights at 250. You will shoot to kill the moment he passes that tree. Are you clear?”
McCorquodale picked up a rifle himself, and the two Coldstreamers sat waiting, guns trained on the tree. Soon the Borderer officer reappeared near the tree with two of his men. They paused, then the officer moved on past McCorquodale’s deadline. Two rifles cracked at the same instant. The officer fell, and Langley never knew which one of them got him.
Such measures weren’t enough. The 5th Borderers fell back, leaving the Coldstream’s flank wide open. Jimmy Langley’s fortified cottage soon came under fire. The afternoon turned into a jumble of disconnected incidents: knocking out a German gun with the much-despised Boyes antitank rifle … washing down a delicious chicken stew with white wine … using the Bren guns in the attic to set three German lorries on fire, blocking the canal road for precious minutes. At one point an old lady appeared from nowhere, begging for shelter. Langley told her to go to hell; then, overcome by remorse, he put her in a back room where he thought she might be safe.
Another time he went to the battalion command post to see how McCorquodale was getting along. The Major was lying beside his trench, apparently hit. “I am tired, so very tired,” he told Langley. Then, “Get back to the cottage, and carry on.”
By now the Germans had occupied a house across the canal from Langley’s place, and the firing grew more intense than ever. In the attic one of the Bren guns conked out, and Langley ordered the other downstairs. It would be more useful there, if the enemy tried to swim the canal and rush the cottage. Langley himself stayed in the attic, sniping with a rifle.
Suddenly a crash … a shower of tiles and beams … a blast of heat that bowled Langley over. In the choking dust he heard a small voice say, “I’ve been hit”—then realized that the voice was his own.
It didn’t hurt yet, but his left arm was useless. A medical orderly appeared, slapped on a dressing, and began bandaging his head. So that had been hit too. He was gently carried down from the attic, put into a wheelbarrow, and trundled to the rear—one of the few Coldstreamers small enough to make an exit this way.
By now it was dark, and the battle tapered off. Firmly established across the canal, Kuechler’s infantry settled down for the night. Resumption of the “systematic attack” could wait until morning. The British began quietly pulling back to the sea. It was all very precise: each battalion took along its Bren guns and Boyes antitank rifles. The 2nd Hampshires marched by their commander, closed up in three’s, rifles at the slope. Most positions were abandoned by 10:00 p.m.
As the gunners of the 53rd Field Regiment marched cross-country toward Dunkirk, a sharp challenge broke the silence of the night, followed by a blaze of rifle fire. French troops, moving into defensive positions along the network of waterways that laced the area, had mistaken them for Germans.
No one was hit; the mix-up was soon straightened out; and the British gunners continued on their way, but with new respect for their ally. These Frenchmen were all business. Part of the 32nd Infantry Division, they had escaped with their corps commander, the feisty General de la Laurencie, from the German trap at Lille. Together with the local garrison troops of the Secteur Fortifié des Flandres, they were now taking over the center of the perimeter from the retiring BEF.
At the same time, the French 12th Division, which had also escaped from Lille, was moving into the old fortifications that lined the Belgian frontier. Dug in here, they would cover the eastern flank of the new shortened defense line. Since General Beaufrère’s 68th Division had always defended the west flank, the entire perimeter was now manned by the French.
It was hard to believe that only yesterday, May 31, Winston Churchill had emotionally told the Allied Supreme War Council that the remaining British divisions would form the rear guard so that the French could escape. Since then there had been, bit by bit, a complete turn-around. Instead of the British acting as rear guard for the French, the French were now acting as rear guard for the British.
Later the French would charge that the switch was yet another trick by “perfidious Albion.” Actually, the British weren’t all that pleased by the arrangement. They had little faith left in their ally. As the 5th Green Howards pulled back through the French guarding the new defense line along the Belgian border, Lieutenant-Colonel W. E. Bush collected his company officers and paid a courtesy call on the local French commander. The real purpose was not to cement Allied unity, but to see whether the French were up to the job. They turned out to be first-rate troops under a first-rate officer.
These French had their first test on the afternoon of the 1st, as Kuechler’s “systematic attack” cautiously approached from the east. General Janssen’s 12th Division stopped the Germans cold.
All the way west it was the same story. The Germans had some armor here—the only tanks that hadn’t gone south—but General Beaufrère’s artillery, firing over open sights, managed to hold the line.
Covered by the French, the remaining British units converged on Dunkirk all through the night of June 1–2. As the 6th Durham Light Infantry trudged through the ruined suburb of Rosendaël, the steady crunch of the men’s boots on broken glass reminded Captain John Austin of marching over hard ice crystals on a cold winter’s day. It was a black, moonless night, but the way was lit by burning buildings and the flash of exploding shells. The German infantry might be taking the night off, but not their artillery. The DLI’s hunched low, as against a storm, their steel helmets gleaming from the light of the flames.
Admiral Ramsay’s ships were already waiting for them. Lifting operations were to run from 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. but when the first destroyer reached the mole, few of the troops had arrived from the perimeter. Those who came down from Bray-Dunes were mostly huddled in the houses and hotels along the beach promenade, seeking cover from the rain of shells.
Commander E. R. Condor couldn’t see anybody at all when he brought the destroyer Whitshed alongside the mole soon after dark. Just smoke, flames, and a few dogs sniffing around. Spotting a bicycle lying on the walkway, Condor mounted it and pedaled toward shore looking for somebody to rescue. Eventually he found some poilus, and then some Tommies near the base of the mole. He sent them all out, along with a few other troops who now began to appear.
At 10:30 p.m. Major Allan Adair led out the 3rd Grenadier Guards, still carrying their Bren guns; they boarded the Channel steamer Newhaven … at 11:00 hundreds of French joined the crowd, and for a while the troops moved out four abreast—unconsciously symbolizing the troubled alliance … at 12:00 the gunners of the 99th Field Regiment marched out to the destroyer Winchelsea. Occasional shells prodded them along. “I’ve been hit,” the man next to Sergeant E. C. Webb quietly remarked, dropping out of line.
“Hand out the wounded” … “Lay out the dead” … “Wounded to the front” … “Watch the hole.” The sailors of the shore party kept up a running stream of orders and directions as they guided the troops along. An effort was made to keep a lane open for the stretcher bearers, but there was no time for the dead. They were simply pushed off the mole onto the pilings below.
It was after midnight when the 1st/6th East Surreys finally reached the mole. There was a long queue now, and the wait stretched into hours. The mole itself was so packed that the line barely moved, and the East Surreys were still inching forward when word came at 2:00 a.m. that the last two ships of the night were alongside—a big paddle steamer, and just ahead of her a destroyer. It was almost 3:00 by the time the East Surreys reached the paddle steamer. Deciding there was no time to lose, the battalion commander Colonel Armstrong quickly divided his men in two, sent the first half up ahead to the destroyer, and ordered the rear-guard half to go aboard the steamer. A few East Surreys were still waiting to embark, when the cry went up, “No more!” Armstrong emphatically pushed the last men down the gangway, then slid down himself as the vessel cast off.
The 5th Green Howards were halfway down the mole at 3:00. They had spent most of the night coming down from Bray-Dunes. It was only six miles, but the sand, the darkness, their utter weariness all slowed them down, and they took nearly five hours to make the march. Now, mixed in with other British units and a great horde of French, they slowly moved along the walkway, with frequent stops that nobody could explain. It was during one of these halts when the word came down, “No more boats tonight. Clear the mole!”
Bitterly disappointed, the Green Howards turned back, only to run headlong into other troops who hadn’t gotten the word yet. For a while there was much pushing and shoving, and all movement came to a standstill. At this point a salvo of German shells landed squarely on the base of the mole, mowing down scores of men.
If Commander Clouston had been on hand, things might have gone more smoothly, but he had returned to Dover for the night. He had served as pier master for five days and nights without a break—had sent off over 100,000 men—now he wanted to confer with Ramsay about the last, climactic stage of the evacuation, and perhaps get a good night’s sleep.
While the destroyers and Channel steamers lifted troops off the mole, Ramsay’s plan called for the minesweepers and smaller paddle-wheelers to work the beach just to the east, going as far as Malo-les-Bains. Thousands of British and French soldiers stood in three or four queues curling into the sea as far as a man could wade. Gunner F. Noon of the 53rd Field Regiment waited for two full hours, while the water crept over his ankles … his knees … his waist … and up to his neck. Then, as the first trace of dawn streaked the eastern sky, somebody shouted, “No more! The ships will return tonight!”
The 2nd Coldstream Guards was another unit to reach the harbor late. After their long stand on the canal, the men were bone-tired, but they still had their Brens. As they moved down the paved promenade at Malo-les-Bains, they marched in perfect step, arms swinging. Most of the waiting troops watched in awe and admiration, but not all. “I’ll bet that’s the bloody Guards,” called a caustic voice in the dark. “Try marching on tiptoes!”
One Coldstreamer who wasn’t late was Lieutenant Jimmy Langley. Groggy from his wounds, he was vaguely aware of being trundled from the battlefield by wheelbarrow and loaded into an ambulance. The ride was one of those stop-and-go affairs that seem to take forever. He still felt no pain, but he was thirsty and dreadfully uncomfortable. Blood kept dripping onto his face from the man above him.
At last the ambulance stopped, and Langley’s stretcher was lifted out. “This way,” somebody said. “The beach is 200 yards ahead of you.”
The stretcher party reached the water’s edge. A ship’s lifeboat lay waiting, rubbing gently against the sand. An officer in a naval greatcoat came over and asked Langley, “Can you get off your stretcher?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’m very sorry, we cannot take you. Your stretcher would occupy the places of four men. Orders are, only those who can stand or sit up.”
Langley said nothing. It was hard to be turned back after coming so close, but he understood. The stretcher bearers picked him up and carried him, still silent, back to the ambulance.
About this time another Coldstreamer, Sergeant L.H.T. Court, joined one of the queues on the beach. Attached to 1st Guards Brigade HQ, he was carrying the brigade war diary, an imposing volume inscribed on a stack of Army Forms C 2118. As he slowly moved forward into the sea, Court found his mind absorbed by three things: his bride of less than a year; his brother, just killed in Belgium; and the mountain of Forms C 2118 he was trying to save.
As the water reached his chest, he once again thought about his young wife. They had no children yet, and if he didn’t return she’d have nothing to remember him by. This lugubrious thought was interrupted by his sudden discovery that some of the Forms C 2118 were floating away. A good headquarters man to the end, he put aside all else, and frantically splashed around retrieving his files.
Eventually Court neared the front of the queue, where a naval launch was ferrying men to a larger vessel further out. Then, at 3:00 a.m. a voice called out from the launch that this was the last trip, but added that there would be another boat later on. Court continued waiting, but no other boat ever came. Some of the men turned back toward the shore, but Court and a few others waded over to a grounded fishing smack lying nearby. He was hauled aboard, still clutching the brigade war diary.
The tide was coming in, and around 4:30 the boat began to move. By now some 90 to 100 men were aboard, most of them packed in the hold where the fish were normally put. A few knowledgeable hands hoisted the sails, and a course was set for England. But there was no wind, and nearly twelve hours later they were still only a mile and a half from Dunkirk. At this point a passing destroyer picked them up, including Court and the lovingly preserved papers.
There were others, too, who weren’t inclined to wait eighteen hours for the Royal Navy to come back the following night. Thirty-six men of the 1st Duke of Wellington’s Regiment took over a sailing barge appropriately called the Iron Duke. Colonel L. C. Griffith-Williams salvaged another stranded barge, loaded it with artillerymen, and set off for Britain. He knew nothing about navigation, but he found a child’s atlas and a toy compass aboard. That would be enough. When a patrol boat later intercepted them, they were heading for Germany.
While the more adventuresome improvised ways to escape, most of the troops trudged back to the shore to wait out the eighteen hours. They passed the time in a variety of ways. It was now Sunday, June 2, and some men joined a chaplain celebrating Holy Communion on the beach at Malo-les-Bains. Ted Harvey, a fisherman stranded when his motor launch conked out, joined an impromptu soccer game. The 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards enjoyed motorcycle races in the sand and bet on which waterfront building would be hit by the next German shell.
But the most important game was to stay alive. Most of the waiting troops crowded into any place that seemed to offer the faintest hope of shelter. One group settled down in the shattered hulk of the French destroyer l’Adroit, lying just off Malo. Wrecked though she was, her twisted steel seemed to offer a measure of security. Others picked an old watchtower left over from Napoleon’s time; its thick stone walls also seemed to promise safety.
Others packed the cellars of nearby buildings. The remnants of the 53rd Field Regiment chose the Café des Fleurs—flimsy, but it was right on the plage. Headquarters of the 5th Green Howards was established at 22 rue Gambetta, a comfortable house about a block from the beach. Here the battalion also adopted a stray poilu, who made right for the kitchen. True to the great tradition of his country, he soon produced a superb stew of beef and wine. Promptly christened “Alphonse,” he was made an honorary member of the battalion and from now on sported a British tin hat.
The 5th Green Howards offered something very rare at Dunkirk: a sizable body of organized troops, complete with their own officers and accustomed to working together. Recalling the chaos at the mole when the loading stopped the previous dawn, the battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel W. E. Bush decided the Green Howards had a useful role to play during the coming night, June 2–3. They would form a cordon to control the traffic and insure an orderly flow of men to the ships as they arrived. Four officers and 100 men should be enough to do the job. Those selected would, of course, be last off and might very well be left behind. The officers drew lots for the honor.
Plans for the evening were moving ahead at Dover loo. Early in the morning Admiral Wake-Walker came over by MTB from Dunkirk. After a couple hours’ rest, he attended a joint naval and military conference in the Dynamo Room. No one knew how many troops were left to be evacuated, but Wake-Walker gave an educated guess of 5,000 British and anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 French.
Fortunately there were plenty of ships on hand. The suspension of daylight evacuation made it possible to collect virtually the whole fleet at Dover and the other southeast ports. Ramsay planned to use this vast concentration for what he called a “massed descent” on Dunkirk harbor. All troops to leave from Dunkirk itself; no more lifting from the beaches. Embarkation to start at 9:00 p.m. and continue until 3:00 a.m. Staggered sailings to insure a steady flow of ships. Three or four vessels to be alongside the mole continuously. Slow vessels to start first; fast ones later, to keep the flow even.
Captain Denny argued that the plan was too complicated—it would only result in confusion. It would be better simply to send everything over, and let the men on the spot work the details out. But most of the staff felt the scheme was worth trying.
As finally worked out, the plan provided for enough large ships to lift 37,000 men, plus whatever number might be picked up by the small craft that continued to ply across the Channel. In addition, the French would be using their own ships to lift troops from the beach just east of the mole, and from the west pier in the outer harbor. That should finish the job, and at 10:52 a.m., June 2, Ramsay signaled his whole command:
The final evacuation is staged for tonight, and the Nation looks to the Navy to see this through. I want every ship to report as soon as possible whether she is fit and ready to meet the call which has been made on our courage and endurance.
“Ready and anxious to carry out your order” … “Fit and ready”—the replies were bravely Nelsonian. But beneath the surface, most of the rescuers felt like Sub-Lieutenant Rutherford Crosby on the paddle-sweeper Oriole. His heart sank when he heard they were going back again. He thought the evacuation was all over. Ramsay had said as much yesterday, when he called for “one last effort.”
But, like Crosby, most of the others soon resigned themselves to facing another desperate night. “We were going,” he later wrote, “and that was all there was to it.”
Not everyone agreed. The three passenger steamers at Folkestone—Ben-My-Chree, Matines, and Tynwald—continued to give trouble. Most of the day they were kept anchored in the harbor, but at 6:50 p.m. Ben-My-Chree came alongside the jetty to be readied for the night’s work. The crew lined the rails, demonstrating and shouting that they were going to leave the ship. When they tried to go ashore a couple of minutes later, they were turned back by an armed naval guard advancing up the gangplank with fixed bayonets. A relief crew quickly took over, and Ben-My-Chree finally sailed at 7:05. Only the chief officer, three gunners, and the wireless operator remained from the original crew.
Then it was Tynwald’s turn. Her crew didn’t try to leave, but as she docked at 7:10 p.m., they hooted and shouted down at the naval sentries. At 7:30 she was still sitting at the pier.
Meanwhile, nobody had paid any attention to the Matines. At 4:30 p.m. she quietly weighed anchor, and without any authorization whatsoever, stood off for Southampton. Her master later explained, “It seemed in the best interests of all concerned.”
There was, in fact, good reason for the civilian crews on these Channel steamers to be afraid. They were virtually unarmed and presented the biggest targets at Dunkirk. If any further proof were needed, it was supplied by a series of incidents that began at 10:30 on the morning of June 2. At this time the Dynamo Room received an urgent message from Captain Tennant in Dunkirk:
Wounded situation acute. Hospital ship should enter during the day. Geneva Convention will be honourably observed. It is felt that the enemy will refrain from attack.
The plight of the wounded had been growing steadily worse for several days, aggravated by the decision to lift only fit men in the regular transports. Now Tennant was trying to ease the situation with this special appeal for hospital ships. He had, of course, no way of knowing whether the enemy would respect the Red Cross, but he sent the message in clear, hoping that the Germans would intercept it and order the Luftwaffe to lay off.
The Dynamo Room swung into action right away, and at 1:30 p.m. the hospital ship Worthing started across the Channel. Gleaming white and with standard Red Cross markings, it was impossible to mistake her for a regular transport. But that didn’t help her today. Two-thirds of the way across, Worthing was attacked by a dozen Ju 88’s. No hits, but nine bombs fell close enough to damage the engine room and force her back to Dover.
At 5:00 p.m. the hospital ship Paris sailed. She got about as far as the Worthing, when three planes tore into her. Again no hits, but near misses started leaks and burst the pipes in the engine room. As Paris drifted out of control, Captain Biles swung out his boats and fired several distress rockets. These attracted fifteen more German planes.
The Dynamo Room sent tugs to the rescue and continued preparing for the coming night’s “massed descent.” With so many vessels involved, it was essential to have the best men possible controlling traffic and directing the flow of ships and men. Fortunately the best was once again available. Commander Clouston, fresh from a night’s rest, would once more be pier master on the mole. To help him, Captain Denny assigned an augmented naval berthing party of 30 men. Sub-Lieutenant Michael Solomon, whose fluent French had been a godsend to Clouston since the 31st, would again serve as interpreter and liaison officer.
The Clouston party left Dover at 3:30 p.m. in two RAF crash boats: No. 243, with the Commander himself in charge, and No. 270, commanded by Sub-Lieutenant Roger Wake, an aggressive young Royal Navy regular. They were going well ahead of the other ships in order to get Dunkirk organized for the night’s work.
It was a calm, lazy afternoon, and as the two boats droned across an empty Channel, the war seemed far away. Then suddenly Lieutenant Wake heard “a roar, a rattle, and a bang.” Startled, he looked up in time to see a Stuka diving on Clouston’s boat about 200 yards ahead. It dropped a bomb— missed—then opened up with its machine guns.
No time to see what happened next. Seven more Stukas were plunging on the two motor boats, machine guns blazing. Wake ordered his helm hard to port, and for the next ten minutes played a desperate dodging game, as the Stukas took turns bombing and strafing him. In an open cockpit all the way aft, Lieutenant de Vasseau Roux, a French liaison officer, crouched behind the Lewis machine gun, hammering away at the German planes. He never budged an inch—not even when a bullet took the sight off his gun six inches from his nose. One of the Stukas fell, and the others finally broke off.
Now at last Wake had a moment to see how Clouston’s boat had weathered the storm. Only the bow was visible, and the whole crew were in the water. Wake hurried over to pick up the survivors, but Clouston waved him off … told him to get on to Dunkirk, as ordered. Wake wanted at least to pick up Clouston as senior officer, but the Commander refused to leave his men. There was no choice; Wake turned again for Dunkirk.
Clouston and his men continued swimming, clustered around the shattered bow of their boat. A French liaison officer clinging to the wreck reported an empty lifeboat floating in the sea a mile or so away. Sub-Lieutenant Solomon asked permission to swim over and try to bring it back for the survivors. Clouston not only approved; he decided to come along. This was their best chance of rescue, and Solomon alone might not be enough.
Clouston was a splendid athlete, a good swimmer, and confident of his strength. Perhaps that was the trouble. He didn’t realize how tired he was. After a short while, he was exhausted and had to swim back to the others clinging to the wreck. Hours passed, but Solomon never returned with the empty boat. As the men waited, they sang and discussed old times together, while Clouston tried to encourage them with white lies about the nearness of rescue. One by one they disappeared, victims of exposure, until finally Clouston too was gone, and only Aircraftsman Carmaham remained to be picked up alive by a passing destroyer.
Meanwhile Sub-Lieutenant Solomon had indeed reached the empty boat. He too was exhausted, but after a long struggle managed to climb aboard. He did his best to row back to the wreck, but there was only one oar. After an hour he gave up: the boat was too large, the distance too far; and it was already dark.
He drifted all night and was picked up just before dawn by the French fishing smack Stella Maria. Wined, rested, and wearing a dry French sailor’s uniform, he was brought back to Dover and transferred to the French control ship Savorgnan de Brazza. His story sounded so far-fetched he was briefly held on suspicion of being a German spy. Nor did his fluent French help him any. “Il prétend être anglais,” the French commander observed, “mais moi je crois qu’il est allemand parce qu’il parle français trop bien.” In short, he spoke French too well to be an Englishman.
An hour and a half after Clouston’s advance party left Dover on the afternoon of June 2, Ramsay’s evacuation fleet began its “massed descent” on Dunkirk. As planned, the slowest ships led the way, leaving at 5 p.m. They were mostly small fishing boats—like the Belgian trawler Cor Jésu, the French Jeanne Antoine, and the brightly painted little Ciel de France.
Next came six skoots … then the whole array of coasters, tugs, yachts, cabin cruisers, excursion steamers, and ferries that by now were such a familiar sight streaming across the Channel … then the big packets and mail steamers, the minesweepers and French torpedo boats … and finally, kicking up great bow waves as they knifed through the sea, the last eleven British destroyers of a collection that originally totaled 40.
The Southern Railway’s car ferry Autocarrier was a new addition. Lumbering along, she attracted a lot of attention, for in 1940 a car ferry was still a novelty in the cross-Channel service. The Isle of Man steamer Tynwald wasn’t new, but in her own way she was conspicuous too. At Folkestone her crew had balked at making another trip. Now here she was, steaming along as though nothing had happened.
It hadn’t been easy. Learning of the trouble, Ramsay sent over Commander William Bushell, one of his best trouble-shooters. The Commander arrived to find Tynwald tied up at the quay, her crew in rebellion. Dover’s instructions were a masterpiece of practical psychology: Bushell was on no account to consider himself in command of the ship, but was to make whatever changes were necessary to get her to Dunkirk. The chief officer relieved the master … the second relieved the chief … a new second was found … other substitutes were rushed down from London by bus … naval and military gun crews were added. At 9:15 p.m. Tynwald was on her way.
More than ever the ships were manned by a crazy hodgepodge of whoever was available. The crew of the War Department launch Marlborough consisted of four sub-lieutenants, four stokers, two RAF sergeants, and two solicitors from the Treasury who had come down on their day off. David Divine, the sea-going journalist, left the Little Ann stranded on a sand bar, hitched a ride home, shopped around Ramsgate for another boat, found a spot on the 30-foot motor launch White Wing.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a very formal, professional-looking naval officer asked, as White Wing prepared to shove off.
“To Dunkirk,” Divine replied.
“No you’re not,” said the officer, as Divine wondered whether he had broken some regulation. After all, he was new at this sort of thing. But the explanation had nothing to do with Divine. White Wing, of all unlikely vessels, had been selected as flagship for an admiral.
Rear-Admiral A. H. Taylor, the Maintenance Officer at Sheerness Dockyard, had now serviced, manned and dispatched over 100 small craft for “Dynamo.” He was a retired officer holding down a good desk job in London; he had every reason to go back feeling he had done his bit—so he went to Ramsgate and wangled his way across the Channel.
There was a rumor that British troops were still at Malo-les-Bains, somewhat blocked off from the mole. Taylor quickly persuaded Ramsay that he should lead a separate group of skoots and slow motor boats over to Malo and get them. He picked White Wing for himself; so it was that almost by accident David Divine became an “instant flag lieutenant” for a genuine admiral.
At 9:30 p.m. Captain Tennant’s chief assistant, Commander Guy Maund, positioned himself with a loudhailer at the seaward end of the eastern mole. As the ships began arriving, he became a sort of “traffic cop,” ordering them here and there, wherever they were needed. Admiral Taylor’s flotilla was directed to the beach at Malo, but there was nobody there. His ships then joined the general rescue effort centered on the mole. As Denny had predicted, it was impossible to draw up a detailed blueprint at Dover; Maund used his own judgment in guiding the flow of ships.
The mole itself got first call. As the destroyers and Channel steamers loomed out of the dusk, Maund gave them their berthing assignments. A strong tide was setting west, and the ships had an especially difficult time coming alongside. Admiral Wake-Walker, hovering nearby in the speedboat MA/SB 10, used her as a tug to nudge one of the destroyers against the pilings. At the base of the mole, Commander Renfrew Gotto and Brigadier Parminter, imperturbable as ever, regulated the flow of troops onto the walkway. The Green Howards, bayonets fixed, formed their cordon as planned, keeping the queues in order. There was plenty of light from the still-blazing city.
Shortly after 9:00 the last of the BEF started down the mole. Lieutenant-Colonel H. S. Thuillier, commanding the one remaining antiaircraft detachment, spiked his seven guns and guided his men aboard the destroyer Shikari. The 2nd Coldstream Guards filed onto the destroyer Sabre, still proudly carrying their Bren guns. With only a handful of men left, the Green Howards dissolved their cordon and joined the parade. The last unit to embark was probably the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry.
These last detachments ignored the order to leave behind their casualties. On the Sabre there were only fourteen stretcher cases, but over 50 wounded were carried aboard by their comrades. Commander Brian Dean, Sabre’s captain, never heard a complaint “and hardly ever a groan.”
In the midst of the crowd streaming onto the mole walked two officers, carrying a suitcase between them. One was a staff officer, worn and rumpled like everyone else. The other looked fresh, immaculate in service dress. Calm as ever, General Alexander was leaving with the final remnants of his command. By prearrangement the MA/SB 10 was waiting, and Admiral Wake-Walker welcomed the General aboard. They briefly checked the beaches to make sure all British units were off, then headed for the destroyer Venomous, still picking up troops at the mole.
Commander John McBeath of the Venomous was standing on his bridge when a voice from the dark hailed him, asking if he could handle “some senior officers and staffs.” McBeath told them to come aboard, starboard side aft.
“We’ve got a couple of generals now—fellows called Alexander and Percival,” Lieutenant Angus Mackenzie reported a few minutes later. He added that he had put them with a few aides in McBeath’s cabin, “but I’m afraid one of the colonels has hopped into your bed with his spurs on.”
Venomous pulled out about 10:00 p.m., packed with so many troops she almost rolled over. McBeath stopped, trimmed ship, then hurried on across the Channel. At 10:30 the destroyer Winchelsea began loading. As the troops swarmed aboard, Commander Maund noticed they were no longer British—just French. To Maund that meant the job was over, and he arranged with Winchelsea’s captain to take him along on the trip back to Dover.
Captain Tennant also felt the job was done. At 10:50 he loaded the last of his naval party onto the speedboat MTB 102; then he too jumped aboard and headed for England. Just before leaving, he radioed Ramsay a final signal: “Operation completed. Returning to Dover.” Boiled down by some gifted paraphraser to just the words, “BEF evacuated,” Tennant’s message would subsequently be hailed as a masterpiece of dramatic succinctness.
Sub-Lieutenant Roger Wake was now the only British naval officer on the mole. With Tennant, Maund, and the other old hands gone—and with Clouston lost on the way over—Wake became pier master by inheritance, and it was not an enviable assignment. He was short-handed, and he was only a sub-lieutenant—not much rank to throw in a crisis.
At the moment it didn’t make much difference. The mole was virtually empty. The British troops had left, and there were no French. “Plenty of ships, cannot get troops,” Wake-Walker radioed Dover at 1:15 a.m. In two hours it would be daylight, June 3, and all loading would have to stop. Time was flying, but half a dozen vessels lay idle alongside the deserted walkway.
“Now, Sub, I want 700. Go and get them,” Lieutenant E. L. Davies, captain of the paddle-sweeper Oriole, told Sub-Lieutenant Rutherford Crosby, as they stood together on the mole wondering where everybody was. Crosby headed toward shore, ducking and waiting from time to time, whenever a shell sounded close. At last, near the base of the mole, he came to a mass of poilus. There was no embarkation officer in sight; so he summoned up his schoolboy French. “Venez ici, tout le monde!” he called, gesturing them to follow him.
The way back led past another ship berthed at the mole, and her crew did their best to entice Crosby’s group into their own vessel, like carnival barkers at a country fair. The rule was “first loaded, first away,” and nobody wanted to hang around Dunkirk any longer than necessary. Crosby made sure none of his charges strayed—let the other crews find their own Frenchmen.
They were trying. Captain Nicholson, substitute skipper of the Tynwald, walked toward the shore, shouting that his ship could take thousands. The Albury too sent out ambassadors, hawking the advantages of the big minesweeper. She eventually rounded up about 200.
But other ships could find no one. The car ferry Autocarrier waited nearly an hour under heavy shelling … then was sent home, her cavernous interior still empty. It was the same with the destroyers Express, Codrington, and Malcolm. Wake-Walker kept them on hand as long as he dared; but as dawn approached, and still no French, they went back empty too.
Where were the French anyhow? To a limited extent it was the familiar story of the ships not being where the men were. As Walker made the rounds on MA/SB 10, he could see plenty of soldiers at the Quai Félix Faure and the other quays and piers to the west, but very few ships. He tried to direct a couple of big transports over there, but that was a strange corner of the harbor for Ramsay’s fleet. When the steamer Rouen ran hard aground, the Admiral didn’t dare risk any more.
There were still the little ships, and Wake-Walker deployed them to help. The trawler Yorkshire Lass penetrated deep into the inner harbor, as far as a vessel could go. Her skipper Sub-Lieutenant Chodzko had lost his ship the previous night, but that didn’t make him any more cautious now. Smoke and flames were everywhere—buildings exploding, tracers streaking across the sky—as Yorkshire Lass ran alongside a pier crowded with Frenchmen. Chodzko called on the troops to come, and about 100 leapt aboard … then three Tommies, somehow left behind … then, as Yorkshire Lass threaded her way out again, a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander, apparently from one of the naval shore parties.
A little further out, Commander H. R. Troup nudged the War Department’s fast motor boat Haig against another pier. Troup was one of Admiral Taylor’s maintenance officers at Sheerness, but he too had wangled a ship for this big night. He picked up 40 poilus, ferried them to a transport waiting outside the harbor, then went back for another 39.
By now every kind of craft was slipping in and out, plucking troops from the various docks and quays. Collisions and near collisions were the normal thing. As Haig headed back out, a French tug rammed her. The hole was above the waterline; so Troup kept on. Two hundred yards, and Haig was rammed again by another tug. As Troup transferred his soldiers to the minesweeper Westward Ho, he was swamped when the minesweeper suddenly reversed engines to avoid still another collision. Troup now scrambled aboard Westward Ho himself, leaving Haig one more derelict in Dunkirk harbor.
Forty men here, 100 there, helped clear the piers, but most of the French weren’t in Dunkirk at all. They were still on the perimeter, holding back General von Kuechler’s “systematic attack.” To the east the 12th Division fought all day to keep the Germans out of Bray-Dunes. Toward evening General Janssen was killed by a bomb, but his men fought on. Southeast, flooding held the enemy at Ghyvelde. In the center, Colonel Menon’s 137th Infantry Regiment clung to Teteghem. Southwest at Spycker, two enterprising naval lieutenants commanded three 155 mm. guns, blocking the road for hours. All the way west, the 68th Division continued to hold General von Hubicki’s panzers. A French observer in the church tower at Mardyck had an uncanny knack of catching the slightest German movement.
Corporal Hans Waitzbauer, radio operator of the 2nd Battery, 102nd Artillery Regiment, was exasperated. The battery had been promised Wiener schnitzel for lunch, but now here they were, pinned down by that sharp-eyed fellow in the church tower.
Waitzbauer, a good Viennese, wasn’t about to give up his Wiener schnitzel that easily. With Lieutenant Gertung’s permission, he darted back, leaping from ditch to ditch, to the company kitchen. Then, with his pot of veal in both hands, a bottle of red wine in his trouser pocket, and half a loaf of white bread in each of his jacket pockets, he scurried back again. Shells and machine-gun bullets nipped at his heels all the way, but he made it safely and distributed his treasures to the battery. Lieutenant Gertung’s only comment was, “You were lucky.”
With Kuechler’s men pinned down in the east and west, the key to the advance was clearly Bergues, the old medieval town that anchored the center of the French line. If it could be taken, two good roads ran directly north to Dunkirk, just five miles to the north.
But how to take it? The town was circled by thick walls and a moat designed by the great military engineer Vauban. For a defense conceived in the seventeenth century, it was amazingly effective in the 20th. A garrison of 1,000 troops was well dug in, and they were supported by strong artillery plus naval guns at Dunkirk. The RAF Bomber Command gave help from the air.
Kuechler had been trying to take the place for two days, and it was still a stand-off. On the afternoon of June 2 it was decided to try a coordinated attack using Stukas and specially trained shock troops drawn from the 18th Regiment of Engineers.
At 3:00 p.m. the Stukas attacked, concentrating on a section of the wall that seemed weaker than the rest. Nearby the engineers crouched with flame-throwers and assault ladders. At 3:15 the bombers let up, and the men stormed the wall, led by their commander Lieutenant Voigt. Dazed by the Stukas, the garrison surrendered almost immediately.
Bergues taken, the Germans pressed on north toward Dunkirk, capturing Fort Vallières at dusk. They were now only three miles from the port, but at this point French General Fagalde scraped together every available man for a counterattack. It was a costly effort, but he managed to stop the German advance. Toward midnight the weary poilus began disengaging and working their way to the harbor, where they hoped the rescue fleet was still waiting.
Kuechler did not press them. In keeping with his orders for the “systematic attack,” he took no unnecessary risks, and the Germans did not usually fight at night anyhow. Besides, there was a feeling in the air that the campaign was really over. Outside captured Bergues, one unit of the 18th Division sat in the garden of a cottage “singing old folk-songs, soldier-songs, songs of love and home.” General Haider spent a good part of the day distributing Iron Crosses to deserving staff officers.
More than ever, all eyes were on the south. To the Luftwaffe, Dunkirk was now a finished story; it would be staging its first big raid on Paris tomorrow, June 3. Flying Officer B. J. Wicks, a Hurricane pilot shot down and working his way to the coast disguised as a Belgian peasant, noticed long columns of German troops—all heading south toward the Somme.
It was about 2:30 a.m. on the 3rd when the first of the French defenders, relieved from the counterattack, began filing onto the mole. Most of the ships had now gone back to Dover, but a few were still there. Sub-Lieutenant Wake struggled to keep order. He might lack rank, but he did have an unusual piece of equipment— a hunting horn.
It didn’t do much good. The French seemed to know a thousand ways to slow down the embarkation. They tried to bring all their gear, their personal possessions, even their dogs. Many of them had inner tubes around their necks—improvised life preservers—and this bulky addition slowed them down even more. They invariably tried to crowd aboard the first boat they came to, rather than space themselves out over the full length of the mole. They insisted on keeping their units intact, never seemed to realize that they could be sorted out later in England. Right now the important thing was to get going before daylight.
Wake and his handful of seamen did their best, but his schoolboy French never rose to the occasion. What he really needed was someone like Clouston’s assistant Michael Solomon, who was fluent in the language and could deal with the French officers. Lacking that, neither shouts of “Allez vite” nor blasts on the hunting horn could help. It was almost symbolic when some “damned Frenchman” (Wake’s words) finally stepped on the horn and put it out of commission for good.
As it grew light, Admiral Wake-Walker—still patrolling in MA/SB 10—ordered all remaining ships to leave. The minesweeper Speedwell cast off; in an hour alongside the mole she had taken aboard only 300 French soldiers. Sub-Lieutenant Wake caught a small French fishing smack, and transferred to a large Channel steamer outside the harbor. The skoot Hilda lingered long enough for a final check of the beach at Malo—nobody there.
At 3:10, as the last ships pulled out, three new vessels slipped in. These were block ships, to be sunk at the harbor entrance under the direction of Captain E. Dangerfield. The hope was, of course, to deny the Germans future use of the port. But nothing seemed to go right this frustrating night. When the block ships were scuttled, the current caught one of them and turned it parallel to the Channel, leaving plenty of room to enter and leave.
“A most disheartening night,” noted Admiral Wake-Walker on his return to Dover in the morning. He had hoped to lift over 37,000 men, actually got off only 24,000. At least 25,000 French—some said 40,000—were left behind. Wake-Walker tended to blame the French themselves for not providing their own berthing parties, but the British were the people used to running the mole. On May 31 Captain Tennant had, at Admiral Abrial’s request, taken charge of both the British and French embarkation. It was asking a lot now to expect the French to take over on the spur of the moment.
To General Weygand sitting in Paris, it was a familiar story. Once again “perfidious Albion” was walking out, leaving the French to shift for themselves. Even before the night’s misadventures, he fired oft” a telegram to the French military attaché in London, urging that the evacuation continue another night to embark the 25,000 French troops who were holding off the Germans. “Emphasize that the solidarity of the two armies demands that the French rearguard be not sacrificed.”
Winston Churchill needed little convincing. He wired Weygand and Reynaud:
We are coming back for your men tonight. Please ensure that all facilities are used promptly. For three hours last night many ships waited idly at great risk and danger.
In Dover at 10:09 on the morning of June 3, Admiral Ramsay signaled his command that their work was not over after all:
I hoped and believed that last night would see us through, but the French who were covering the retirement of the British rearguard had to repel a strong German attack and so were unable to send their troops to the pier in time to be embarked. We cannot leave our Allies in the lurch, and I call on all officers and men detailed for further evacuation tonight to let the world see that we never let down our Ally. …
On the destroyer Malcolm the morning had begun on a high note. She was just back from her seventh trip to Dunkirk, and was still in one piece. The last of the BEF had been evacuated, and everyone assumed that the operation was over. Breakfast in the ward room was a merry affair.
Lieutenant Mellis fell on his bunk hoping to catch up on his sleep. He was so tired he didn’t even take his clothes off. Several hours later he was awakened by the sound of men’s feet on the deck overhead. He learned that the crew was assembling for an important announcement by Captain Halsey, who had just returned from Ramsay’s headquarters. Halsey came quickly to the point: “The last of the BEF was able to come off because the French took over the perimeter last night. Now the French have asked us to take them off. We can’t do anything else, can we?”
No. But it was still a shock. For Mellis, it was the worst moment of the whole show. To enjoy that delicious feeling of relief and relaxation—and then to have it all snatched away—was almost more than he could stand. The ward room had planned a festive mess that evening, and decided to dress festively anyhow. When the Malcolm sailed on her eighth trip to Dunkirk at 9:08 p.m., June 3, her officers were wearing their bow ties and monkey jackets.