Attack in the West
AT HALF PAST FOUR in the morning of Friday, 10 May, Hitler’s private train, curiously named Amerika, pulled into the tiny station of Euskirchen between Bonn and Aachen and near to the Belgian border. Heading out into the still dark, crisp air, the Führer of Germany and his entourage climbed into a six-wheeled Mercedes limousine and sped off, climbing up to a hilly, wooded region and came to a halt at the mouth of a bunker dug into the rock. This complex, known as Felsennest, was to be Hitler’s command post. Some 1,200 feet up, the entrance was hidden but none the less commanded views towards the Belgian border, only twenty miles to the west.
Hitler, at least, was in a buoyant and confident mood. The hour was finally upon him and upon his people. There was now no turning back. Key to the German chances of success would be the speed with which the panzer and motorized divisions in Armeegruppe A could reach the Meuse, around a hundred miles from the German border, get across it, and smash the French line before they had a chance to properly counter-attack.
As one of the principal architects of this plan, General Heinz Guderian was every bit as confident as Hitler that this could be achieved. The key was speed. Guderian had reckoned that to catch the French out, they would have to reach the Meuse in three days and get across it in four. The only way this could be achieved was through intricate planning and sticking rigidly to a very tight timetable, but this was no small challenge and dependent on all too many factors playing out like clockwork.
In fact, there was much that could derail the entire plan. The ten mechanized divisions of Armeegruppe A equated to 39,373 vehicles, 1,222 panzers and a further 545 other tracked vehicles, which, bumper-to-bumper, meant a theoretical march length of around nine hundred miles. These ten divisions had been divided into four different corps groupings. A new and untested group of three panzer corps had been formed for the main spearhead under the command of General von Kleist, of which Guderian’s three-division corps was leading the way. The first potential problem was one of generalship. Commanding Armeegruppe A was Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, who, as Guderian had discovered in planning meetings, had little understanding of panzer tactics and their capabilities. General von Kleist, also above Guderian in the chain of command, had a similar lack of understanding and repeatedly failed to grasp the essence of the plan at all. Both were conspicuously more cautious than Guderian, who had done all he could to prepare his own corps with as little interference as possible.
The second potential hazard was that the four corps had different objectives but had to pass through the dense Ardennes forest using just a handful of roads. The possibility of immense gridlock was only too obvious.
A further problem was that before any of these spearheads reached the Meuse, they had to overcome a number of obstacles. Panzerkorps Guderian had to cross the Luxembourg border barriers, then the Belgian fortification line, and after that the second line of Belgian defences. Then there was the River Semois to cross, which was bound to be defended, and finally they had to face the French border fortifications, which stood some six miles from the Meuse. None of these were expected to offer too much resistance but it only needed one of them to hold up the advance for any period of time, and the whole timetable would be shot to pieces.
The scepticism of men like von Kleist and others was entirely understandable.
Further to the north, the men of Armeegruppe B were also preparing to attack. The plan was that they would thrust into Holland and Belgium and draw the Allies forward, hopefully hoodwinking them into thinking this was the main attack. At 5 a.m., having already roused the men of 24. Artillery Battalion, Leutnant Siegfried Knappe was astride his horse, Schwabenprinz, and reporting to his CO, Major Raake, that all the batteries were ready. Based in the Eifel region, they would be supporting 87. Infanteriedivision as it advanced into Belgium. Also ready to move out were the men of Flakregiment 22, who had been ordered to advance into Luxembourg having first crossed the River Mosel. Among the men was Günther Sack, an eighteen-year-old Kanonier of the lowest rank, who had only joined 2. Battalion on 1 April. A young man full of ardent zeal, he had been initially placed on to an officer-training programme but attached to a heavy flak regiment. This, he felt, did not have the right caché for someone of his ambitions; flak artillery pieces were defensive weapons and he desperately wanted to prove himself in action. With this in mind, he had applied to leave the Luftwaffe – which was responsible for all anti-aircraft units – and join the Waffen-SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler instead. Much to his great disappointment, however, this had been refused. Piqued, he had abandoned his officer training and insisted on transferring to light flak; at least that way there was a chance of getting closer to the front, or so he hoped. Since joining 2. Battalion, however, he had been bored witless. There had been no aircraft to shoot and monotonous daily duties: practising changing overheated barrels, moving the guns into position and other routine exercises. Now, on the morning of 10 May, however, there was at long last the promise of action.
Leading the way was the Luftwaffe, which was concentrated in the northern area both to help maintain the deception plan and also to hit as many Allied airfields as possible in the hope that a large proportion of enemy aircraft could be destroyed before they got airborne. Furthermore, giving the impression of concentrated might would also help to cow the enemy. Newsreels had been pumping out footage of massed bomber and Stuka strikes, and it was essential to maintain this impression.
Among the Stuka units was I.St/186, which had not taken part in the Norwegian campaign. Commanding the second Staffel was Hauptmann Helmut Mahlke, twenty-six years old, and their target was the hangars and ground installations of the French air base at Metz-Frescaty. They were due to hit them early, at 6 a.m. It was Mahlke’s first combat sortie, and the night before he had struggled to sleep, worried about how he would perform and whether he had done all that was possible to prepare his squadron.
They had been up at 4 a.m. and just under an hour later were walking to their machines. The ground crew helped the pilots and gunners into their harnesses, pulling the straps tight, and then went to stand by the starting handles. As they turned them the engines began to whine, slowly at first, then faster until the mechanic yelled and Mahlke switched on the ignition and the engine erupted into life with a roar. Around him, nearly thirty others burst into life as well.
Mahlke taxied out, and soon after they were airborne and the entire formation was crossing the River Moselle and flying on, the countryside beneath them growing with the light of dawn. At last, Mahlke spotted the target and called out on his radio, ‘Anton 2 to Anton: target on the port beam below!’
The Gruppenkommandeur now led them into line astern for the attack formation and on a wide left-hand turn so they could dive on the target against the wind, as prescribed. Metz’s flak guns now opened fire – a few grey puffs staining the sky. Mahlke, his tension rising, watched the first Stukas make their dives.
Then it was the turn of his own Staffel. Bomb switches on, radiator flaps closed, dive brakes extended, close throttle, drop the left wing, and then he was putting the machine into an eighty-degree dive and the ground began hurtling towards him. He could see his target and kept it in the cross-hairs. The airship hangar – his own target – now came rushing towards him at a terrifying rate. Two thousand metres, one thousand five hundred, one thousand, then at five hundred metres he pressed the bomb button – a slight jolt – and next he was pulling out of the dive and into a climbing left-hand turn. His bomb had hit almost dead centre, but nothing seemed to happen, until suddenly he could see the sides of the hangar bulge as though the whole building was being inflated. A moment later the entire hangar collapsed in on itself. All around, the depot was now engulfed in swirling smoke.
They touched back down at their new forward base at Ferschweiler at 6.40 a.m. only to discover the ground crew had yet to catch up. Even so, this first mission, over which Mahlke had so agonized, had been a complete success. ‘The general feeling,’ he wrote, ‘was that we had given them a very nasty wake-up call.’
Hajo Herrmann and his fellow crews in KG4 were also busy from the outset, but so too were the transport planes as they ferried Fallschirmjäger to drop on key bridges, airfields and the Belgian fort at Eben-Emael. Among them was Gefreiter Martin Pöppel, part of 1. Battalion, 1. Fallschirmjägerregiment, whose task was to capture intact an important bridge at Dordrecht, to the south-east of Rotterdam.
Glancing out of the window of the ‘Tante Ju’, as the transports were known, Pöppel thought the large number of aircraft looked like flocks of birds gathering in the autumn. Stuka dive-bombers flew below them, fighters above. A few jolts as bursts of anti-aircraft fire peppered the sky, and then, at 5.10 a.m., it was time to jump. Suddenly, Pöppel was out, floating down peacefully, not a line of tracer in sight, and landing safely away from the many ditches that criss-crossed the flat landscape. Unfastening his ’chute, he ran towards the containers to help gather weapons and radio equipment, and together he and the rest of his company quickly set up HQ in a hastily abandoned farmhouse where there was still-warm tea and buttered bread on the table.
On the banks of the River Dordtsche Kil at ’s-Gravendeel south-east of Rotterdam, Korporaal Gerrit den Hartog and the rest of 28th Infantry Regiment, part of Group Kil, hurriedly scrambled out of their cots and, still dazed from sleep, dressed and grabbed their rifles. They had heard the sound of aircraft but had initially assumed they were heading to attack Britain, so it was a shock when they began dropping hordes of paratroopers and dive-bombing.
The Dutch Army was ill-equipped for battle. Holland had not fought a war in nearly 150 years and had determinedly held fast to its neutrality in the last war. It had no tanks and little artillery, and most of what it did have was horribly out of date. Gerrit den Hartog had been a reservist, and at thirty-one had left his wife, four young children and market-gardening business at the outbreak of war, even though Holland remained neutral and refused all offers of alliances or aid. Now, eight months on, the country’s neutrality counted for nothing.
The Army, commanded by General Henri Winkelman, had recognized that, in the event of a German invasion, there was no point in trying to defend the whole country. Instead, and with French help, it would protect the western group of islands on which were the largest of the Dutch cities. It was hoped that the wide rivers separating them from the rest of the Netherlands would provide a natural defensive barrier; these sea rivers and canals had traditionally been the key to Dutch defence. No one in the Dutch command had counted on airborne forces swooping down on them, however.
Den Hartog was a quiet man, devoted to his wife and children, and although a qualified marksman was not, by nature, remotely martial. Most of his fellows were similarly older reservists and in no way equipped to take on highly motivated and well-trained young Fallschirmjäger. In fact, none of them had even been issued with ammunition, and within a very short time the Zwijndrecht bridges between Dordrecht and Rotterdam, just to the north of their positions, had been captured and communications with the garrison in Dordrecht cut.
Den Hartog’s commander, Major Ravelli, was promised reinforcements but they hadn’t appeared. In the afternoon, the 28th crossed the River Kil and formed a bridgehead at Wieldrecht, and in the evening the promised support finally arrived in the form of two sections of heavy machine guns. Later, as dusk fell, they pressed forward towards Amstelwijk, hoping to link up with other Dutch forces. Instead, they found a deserted command post littered with dead Dutch troops. So far, den Hartog had heard a lot of bombing and shooting, and had seen a mass of enemy troops dropping from the sky, but he had yet to engage the enemy at all. What exactly was going on was hard to tell, but it was clear the battle was not going well for the Dutch.
Meanwhile, the Allied air forces were desperately trying to meet this threat from the air. At Nivelles airfield in Belgium, the pilots of the country’s Air Force had been woken in the very early hours. It was around 1 a.m. that Jean Offenberg, a 23-year-old pilot in 4e Escadrille of 2e Régiment de l’Air, had been roused. ‘Go to hell,’ Offenberg told his friend, Alexis Jottard, the man shaking him awake. ‘If you can’t find a better joke than that, go back to bed.’
‘No, it’s not a joke,’ Jottard insisted. ‘Get up. It’s the real thing.’ Reluctantly, and sensing a ring of truth in Jottard’s words, Offenberg got out of bed and put on his sweater and flying suit. Outside, in the shadows, Siraut, the duty officer, confirmed the worst. ‘It’s war,’ he said. They were to be ready to fly at first light and to evacuate the airfield, as rehearsed, in case the enemy, as expected, bombed it. They were to move to an emergency airstrip at Brusthem near Saint-Trond.
At 4.30 a.m., flying in their open-cockpit Italian Fiat CR.42 biplanes, they were at 3,000 feet over Gossoncourt, looking down at the even more antiquated Fairey Foxes dispersed around the perimeter, and then they were landing at Brusthem as planned. Nivelles, they soon discovered, had already been bombed. ‘Don’t worry,’ Offenberg told Jottard. ‘They’re bound to bomb this too. We’ve only got to wait like children. I should like to go and have a good bash at those bastards!’
Soon after, he got his wish. Taking Jottard and another pilot, Maes, with him, the three took off. As they slowly climbed, Offenberg wondered how he would feel when he finally met a German aircraft for the first time. He did not have to wait long, for suddenly, off to port, he could see a twin-engine bomber – a Dornier, he recognized – with its distinct black cross and swastika. His heart suddenly beating quicker, he waved to his two comrades only to see Maes already diving away without waiting for orders as instructed. Then Jottard was pointing furiously and there, up ahead, Offenberg saw a formation of aircraft stacked up. Messerschmitts. In what seemed like moments, they were among them and Offenberg was diving between them, bullets from the rear gunner of the Me110 arcing towards him as he fired his own machine guns. Then his starboard machine gun jammed, he pulled out of his dive and found the sky miraculously empty once more, with no sight of Maes, Jottard or even any Messerschmitts . . .
It was now 6.45 a.m., and Offenberg was at 5,000 feet over the town of Diest when suddenly he spotted another Dornier – or was it the same one? – below him. Quickly checking the skies were clear, he sped down towards it in a shallow dive as the rear gunner from the bomber opened fire, bright sparks rushing towards him like sunlight on a diamond. Offenberg opened fire in turn but the Dornier was escaping, so giving up the chase he headed for home only to run into yet another Dornier approaching him and getting bigger by the second. A dive and a turn and Offenberg was right above him and opening fire with a long burst of his now-cooled machine gun. ‘The old Fiat vibrated and bucked from the recoil of that machine-gun,’ he noted. ‘Spirals of black smoke began to pour from his port engine.’ Pulling on the stick to avoid a stream of German tracers, he saw the Dornier bank and dive away, rapidly losing height. At 7.45 a.m., Offenberg landed back at Brusthem, happy to have made it back alive, to have scored his first kill, to see Maes and Jottard in one piece too, and to find the airfield had still not been attacked.
Further to the south-east, at Vassincourt, near Rheims, 1 Squadron of the RAF’s Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF), had been woken at 3.30 a.m. and told to make straight for their airfield. Among the pilots was Billy Drake, a 22-year-old career pilot who had joined the RAF four years earlier having seen an advert in a copy of Aeroplane magazine. He’d been rather taken with flying ever since enjoying a brief flight with Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus as a boy. Having finished school in Switzerland and determined not to follow his parents’ preferred choice of career as a doctor or diplomat, he applied and was accepted.
At 5 a.m., as they sat around the dispersal tent at the airfield, the 1 Squadron pilots were scrambled and ordered to patrol Metz at 20,000 feet. They ran to their Hurricanes and took off in flights, climbing up through the haze until, at around 5,000 feet, they emerged into bright sunshine. The trouble was, the haze below was still sufficiently thick for them to be able to see very little. Eventually, though, B Flight did spot a formation of Dorniers, which they attacked, managing to shoot one down. Drake, however, soon became separated, having been watching some Me109s in the distance. Two of the German fighters attacked him, but he managed to dodge their fire and get on the tail of one of them, which then dived. Following him down, they sped towards Germany and, having crossed the border, the German pilot flew under some power cables, presumably hoping this might shake off his pursuer. Drake followed him, however, opened fire with his eight Browning machine guns and to his satisfaction watched the 109 crash into a wood and explode.
Both France and Britain had been expecting a German offensive in the West for some time. Even though theirs was a modern world, the obvious campaigning season was spring and summer, so since the particularly harsh winter had ebbed away, they had been increasingly aware that Hitler could strike at any moment. Even so, Hitler’s offensive could not have come at a worse moment for the Allies, as both Paris and London were gripped by political crisis. In London, matters had begun to boil over on 7 May, when a debate had begun in the House of Commons about the campaign in Norway. In a subsequent vote of confidence the Prime Minister had suffered a crippling moral defeat, which had cut the Government’s majority to a mere eighty-one. In peacetime, this would have quickly blown over, but now, in wartime, it looked like a fatal blow. The results had prompted, first, a gasp around the packed House, then pandemonium.
An ashen and rather shell-shocked Chamberlain had walked stiffly from the Commons just after 11 p.m. on 8 May amid jeers and taunts of ‘Missed the bus!’, ‘Get out!’ and ‘Go, in the name of God, go!’ A more sensitive man than his sometimes austere persona suggested, Chamberlain had been profoundly humiliated by events.
In the corridors of Westminster the general opinion was that Chamberlain would now have to go; he had always been unpopular with the British left, including an increasingly powerful trade union movement. Nor had he made any effort to woo leading Labour members of Parliament; there had certainly been no effort to create a wartime coalition. Thus there were many now only too happy to seize the chance to oust him. Despite this, the 71-year-old Prime Minister had woken early on Thursday morning, 9 May, determined to fight his corner. As the day wore on, however, it became increasingly clear to him that his premiership was over. The damage was too great, and the mood for change had swung too far against him. But who would take over?
Most felt that Lord Halifax was the obvious choice. A former Viceroy of India, a hugely experienced politician and a man widely respected for his sound judgement, Halifax was certainly top of Chamberlain’s list as successor. The other leading Tories were either too young, lacking a sufficient following, too unpopular or too inexperienced, but Halifax, it was widely felt, would be safe, dependable and a voice of calm reason in the traumatic days that seemed likely to lie ahead.
However, Halifax was not quite as suitable as at first he appeared. He was not much interested in military matters and although, unlike Chamberlain, he had served in the First World War, he had spent most of his army career in a staff position. It was certainly fair to say he lacked the modern soldier’s perspective. Moreover, he was a peer, which meant he could not sit in the House of Commons; someone else would have to run that side of things. In fact, the very thought of becoming PM at this difficult time had brought on a psychosomatic bout of nausea, and he told Chamberlain that morning that he would be very reluctant to take over the reins.
There was one other possible candidate for the post. Winston Churchill, back in the Cabinet since the outbreak of war, had all the military credentials Halifax lacked, as well as a stack of political experience. He was fascinated and energized by war. He had fought at the Battle of Omdurman, had taken part in the Boer War, had served in India and had commanded a battalion in France in the last war. Yet while this rich experience was undoubtedly to his credit, there were many who viewed him as a maverick, inconsistent and hot-headed; he drank too much; smoked too much. His methods were unorthodox. And there was mud on him he had been unable to shake off: he had been the architect of the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of 1915, and Chancellor during the General Strike of 1926. In more recent times, he had fought hard against the Government over Indian independence and against Chamberlain’s appeasement policy with Germany; he had sided with Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936, which had further distanced him from the establishment. And although he had largely avoided censure during the two-day debate, there were many – Jock Colville included – who felt he was more to blame for the failure of the land campaign in Norway than Chamberlain. For all his enormous energy, drive and undoubted oratorical skills, he was widely regarded as a man lacking sound judgement. A man unsuited to the highest office. At the very least, making Churchill Prime Minister would be a big risk.
Later that afternoon, at another meeting, this time with Churchill included as well as Halifax, Chamberlain told them his mind was made up; he would resign but would be happy to serve under Halifax or Churchill. Halifax, whose stomach ache now started anew, repeated his reluctance to take over, citing the impotence he felt he would have as a peer while Churchill ran defence and, effectively, the Commons.
And this was the crux of the issue. Halifax, rather than holding no ambition for office, believed he would merely be a lame-duck Prime Minister while Churchill took effective control. Far better for the country, he believed, if Churchill was PM while he, as Foreign Secretary, acted as a restraining influence from within the Cabinet. Chamberlain acquiesced; so long as the Labour contingent agreed to serve under Churchill, the transfer of power would be made. But as the Germans launched their assault in the West, confirmation had still not been received; on that day of days, Britain’s political leadership remained in turmoil. Not until the evening would Churchill finally be confirmed as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Across the Channel, Paul Reynaud had also offered his resignation the previous day, just seven weeks into his premiership. The cause, once again, had been the ever-widening split between him and former PM but still Minister of National Defence and War, Édouard Daladier. Reynaud had been determined to put some life into Général Gamelin, whom he blamed for the painfully slow response to the Norwegian campaign. Failure in Norway was bad enough, but the speed with which the Germans had moved did not augur well. What if Germany should attack France? Would Gamelin’s forces also be too slow to respond to that? It was this slow, methodical approach to war that Reynaud was desperate to change. In identifying this as a malaise of the French Army, he was quite right, as Capitaine André Beaufre had been increasingly aware ever since being part of the Anglo-French mission to Moscow the previous August. The trouble was, it was rather too late to do anything about it. Sacking Gamelin might only make matters worse, not better.
At any rate, after long difficult weeks banging his head against a brick wall and finding himself almost powerless to do anything, Reynaud had decided he needed to force the issue. The previous day, he had called the Cabinet together to demand Gamelin’s resignation. As expected, Daladier had refused to accept the move, so Reynaud had decided to enact his plan. He would resign his Government in the hope that President Lebrun would ask him to re-form another one, this time with the Prime Minister as Minister of National Defence and War, not Daladier. Then he could sack Gamelin without further ado.
Reynaud had been expecting to see Lebrun the following day but then, in the early hours of the morning, 10 May, had come the news that his move had, like the French and British in Norway, been too late. His own resignation and the sacking of Gamelin were now out of the question.
‘General,’ wrote Reynaud to Gamelin that morning. ‘The battle has begun. One thing only counts: to win the victory. We shall all work in unison to this end.’ Gamelin wrote in reply in full agreement: ‘France alone is of importance.’
Capitaine André Beaufre was awoken that morning, 10 May, by the sound of bombs. In fact, the German attack had not come as a complete surprise as there had been intelligence reports from Belgium that suggested something was afoot the previous evening and an order to stand to had been issued to all French troops. Beaufre had spent the last few months working with Général Aimé Doumenc, who had been part of the Moscow mission the previous summer and was now the commander of GHQ Land Forces, based in a Rothschild chateau at Montry on the River Marne. This lay roughly halfway between Georges’s North-East Front HQ and Gamelin’s headquarters at Vincennes in Paris. The creation of this third major headquarters was another layer of totally unnecessary bureaucracy, drawing on key members of Georges’s staff and breaking up teams who had been working perfectly well. GHQ Land Forces was designed to prepare elaborate orders – and also to place a check on Georges. At the same time, both Army intelligence and the operations staff were also split up between Georges’s HQ and this new one under Doumenc. Transport and supply were taken completely from Georges’s HQ and placed under Doumenc. None of this made any sense whatsoever, especially for an army that relied so heavily on telephone and telegraph – and not radio – for communication.
With the sound of bombs falling, Beaufre was sent to report to Gamelin at Vincennes and arrived there at 6.30 a.m. By this time, the Commander-in-Chief had already put the great plan of attack into action and ordered his forces to start advancing into Belgium to meet the enemy. The move into Belgium had not been made lightly. There were certainly advantages, as his troops would be swelled further by the thirty divisions of the Dutch and Belgian armies. It also meant fighting clear of France and its northern industrial area. On the other hand, if they stayed in France, they would get the benefit of well-prepared defences.
Furthermore, Gamelin had had to decide where the attack was most likely to fall. It was true he had millions of men, but the Germans, in attacking, could concentrate their forces and the trick was to be able to meet any attack with similar strength. He had discounted an enemy assault on the Maginot Line, but also believed a thrust through the Ardennes, with its deep valleys, limited roads and thick forests, unlikely. The Ardennes, Gamelin had declared, was ‘Europe’s best tank obstacle’. This left an advance through the Low Countries, which is what the Germans had done in 1914, and it was on this assumption that Gamelin had made his plans. One version, known as ‘Plan E’, was to advance a short way, to the River Escaut. A second version, ‘Plan D’, was to see his troops advance to the River Dyle – around eighty miles. It would mean a bit of a logistical headache but could be done. In March, an addition to the plan had been made, known as the Breda Variant. This would see French troops thrust further north to Antwerp to link up with the Dutch. On paper, this seemed like a small addition, but logistically it was a major change. Breda was twice as far from the French border as it was from the German, and so it was a race Gamelin could not hope to win. It also required a lot more manpower. In the basic Plan D, ten French and five British divisions would advance to the Dyle. The Breda Variant required a further fifteen and the movement of the entire French 7e Armée – a force Général Georges had intended to keep in reserve.
Be that as it may, it was the Breda version of Plan D that was now being put into effect. And as Beaufre reached Vincennes, he found Gamelin striding up and down, humming, with a pleased look on his face. The signs were that the Germans were advancing through the Low Countries, just as Gamelin had predicted.
The newly promoted Capitaine René de Chambrun had also been awoken that morning by the sound of battle, although in his case it was a nearby battery of anti-aircraft guns. He had recently been promoted to captain and posted as a British liaison officer, first to British headquarters near Arras and then had almost immediately been told to report to 151st Brigade, part of 50th Division, for a few days pending the arrival of a further British division, at which point he would join this new staff instead. On the morning of 10 May, he was based in a family home in the village of Don, some ten miles south of Lille and in among the coalfield villages rebuilt since the end of the last war. Around about were old German bunkers, now mostly reclaimed by grass and weeds.
The firing of the guns made him sit up with a jolt. He could hear the tiles on the roof rattling from the vibration, then, as he quickly dressed, he heard the drone of bombers followed by the lighter roar of fighter aircraft and the rat-a-tat of machine guns. Downstairs, the family he was billeted with were gathered around their wireless set, still in pyjamas and nightgowns, listening to Belgian radio. Moments later, a deafening explosion could be heard nearby, shattering the window panes. Chambrun rushed outside and saw in a field a few hundred yards away the burning remains of a German Heinkel 111 and three airmen floating down in their parachutes. Clutching his revolver, he ran towards the nearest and, along with some British and French troops, captured the man, a young, blond pilot.
All three men were then taken to brigade HQ in the village and there Chambrun questioned them. ‘The Nazi lieutenant told me that Germany had no grievance against France,’ noted Chambrun. ‘He stated that Germany’s real enemy was Great Britain, the power of which had to be destroyed.’ Soon after, as Plan D was put into effect, Chambrun was told the brigade would be moving into Belgium – although not until sunset and then to an area around eight miles south-west of Brussels. Chambrun was to go ahead and help arrange billeting.
The journey was a long and tortuous one. Accompanied by his British driver, Chambrun experienced at first hand the troubles that were to dog the Allies in the days to come as hordes of Belgian civilians tried to flee the cities, towns and villages. This would become known as the ‘exode’, prompted by a combination of panic, memories of German atrocities during their advance in 1914, and a desire to escape the violence of war and bombing that many believed must surely follow.
Just outside Tournai, only just across the border, Chambrun’s car was forced to a traffic-induced standstill. Suddenly, Stuka dive-bombers screeched overhead, then dived down and bombs fell around them. Fortunately, most fell in the fields either side, but one did land on a Belgian family in their car, blowing them to smithereens; it was a chilling real-life demonstration of this terror weapon, already familiar from newsreels of Poland. As they eventually crawled past the wreckage, an old man stopped by Chambrun’s car and said, ‘Il faut qu’on gagne car c’est pire qu’en quatorze!’ We must win because this is worse than fourteen!
They were not the last Stukas Chambrun saw that day, and by the time he reached the village south of Brussels he was already eight hours behind schedule. Having found the burgomaster and seen to the billeting, and pausing for an omelette and beer in an inn, he and his exhausted driver began the tedious journey back. Far from experiencing an ordered and efficient advance, Chambrun had witnessed chaos, confusion and a civilian population in panic. In the preparations for Plan D, for the Breda Variant, and during all the appreciations of what might happen should the Germans attack, little, if any, thought had been given to what might happen if fleeing civilians were to clog the roads. It was already looking like quite a bad oversight.