The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  Seventeen ships sunk or knocked out of action. That was the Luftwaffe’s score this June 1. All day the human residue—the hollow-eyed survivors, the pale wounded on stretchers, the ragged bundles that turned out to be bodies—were landed on the quays of Dover, Ramsgate, and other southeast coast towns. The effect was predictable on the men whose ships happened to be in port.

  At Folkestone the crew of the railway steamer Malines were especially shaken by the ordeal of the Prague. The two vessels belonged to the same line, and there was a close association between the crews. Some of the Malines’s men were already survivors of a ship sunk at Rotterdam, and Malines herself had been heavily bombed there. After two hard trips to Dunkirk she was now at Folkestone waiting for coal, when nerves began to crack. The ship’s doctor certified that three engineers, the wireless operator, the purser, a seaman, and several engine room hands were all unfit for duty.

  Malines was ordered to Dunkirk again on the evening of June l, but with the crew on the edge of revolt, her captain refused to go. He was supported by the masters of two other steamers also at Folkestone, the Isle of Man packets Ben-My-Chree and Tynwald. They too refused to go, and when the local naval commander sent a written inquiry asking whether Ben-My-Chree would sail, her skipper simply wrote back, “I beg to state that after our experience in Dunkirk yesterday, my answer is ‘No.’”

  Trouble had been brewing for some time, particularly among the larger packets and passenger steamers. They were still manned by their regular crews and managed by their peacetime operators. These men had no naval training whatsoever, nor much of that special élan that the weekend sailors and other volunteers brought to the job.

  As early as May 28 the steamer Canterbury refused to sail. She had been there twice, and that was enough. The Dynamo Room finally put a naval party aboard to stiffen the crew. This worked, and a hurried call was made to Chatham Barracks for 220 seamen and stokers. They would form a pool of disciplined hands, ready for duty on any ship where the crew seemed to be wavering-

  When the St. Seiriol refused to sail on the 29th, an officer, armed guard, and seven stokers went on board at 10:00 a.m., and the ship left at 11:00. On the packet Ngaroma the engineers were the problem. They were quickly replaced by two Royal Navy stokers, and an armed party of six hands was added for good measure. Ngaroma went back to work.

  But these were individual cases. The dismaying thing about Malines, Tynwald, and Ben-My-Chree was that the three ships seemed to be acting in concert. A hurried call was sent to Dover for relief crews and armed guards, but it would be some hours before they arrived. All through the night of June 1–2 the three ships—each able to lift 1,000 to 2,000 men—lay idle.

  Other men were losing heart too. When the tug Contest was commandeered at Ramsgate for a trip to Dunkirk, the crew deliberately ran her aground. Refloated, the engineer refused to put to sea, claiming his filters would be blocked by sand.

  Off Bray-Dunes, Admiral Wake-Walker signaled another tug to help a stranded minesweeper. The skipper paid no attention, wanted only to get away. Wake-Walker finally had to train a gun on him and send a navy sub-lieutenant to take charge.

  There was also trouble with the vessels of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The boat from Hythe flatly refused to go at all. The coxswain argued that he had been asked to run his boat onto the beach, and once aground he could never get off. He would not try at Dunkirk what he could not do at Hythe—apparently ignoring the fact that at Dunkirk the tide would do it for him.

  He managed to talk the Walmer and Dungeness boats out of going too. In disgust the Navy then took over the whole RNLI fleet, except the Ramsgate and Margate craft. They had already sailed for Dunkirk with their own crews.

  These lifeboat crews were no sniveling cowards. The coxswain of the Hythe boat had been risking his life in the service for 37 years, 20 of them in charge of the boat. He had won the Institution’s silver medal for gallantry. Yet there was something different about Dunkirk—the continuing danger, the inability to control events, the reality of being under fire. Such factors could undermine the resolve of even the staunchest men.

  Nor was the Royal Navy immune. There was a tendency to feel that “it can’t happen here,” that naval training and discipline somehow insulated a man from the fear and uncertainty that beset civilian hearts. Yet this was not necessarily so. Morale on the destroyer Verity, shaky since May 27, seemed to collapse after a trip to Dunkirk on the 30th. Twelve men broke out of the ship, with six still absent on the 31st. Those who returned simply explained they couldn’t “stand it” any longer. Verity was ordered to remain in Dover harbor.

  Acute fear could be like a disease—both physical and highly contagious. The minesweeper Hebe was hit perhaps worst of all. She had been a sort of command ship off Bray-Dunes; few of the crew slept for five days. On the evening of May 31 the ship’s sub-lieutenant collapsed, going into fits and convulsions. Next day, 27 members of the crew came down the same way. Finally, as Hebe returned to Dover on the morning of June 1, the ship’s surgeon collapsed too, mumbling that he could not face another trip to Dunkirk.

  Rest was the answer, but rest was a luxury they couldn’t have. After especially grueling trips the Malcolm and the Windsor did get a day off, but usually the ships just kept going. The main hope for relief came from the steady stream of new vessels and fresh hands that kept pouring in.

  The Navy continued to comb its lists, searching for officers who could be borrowed from other duties. Commander Edward K. Le Mesurier was assigned to the aircraft carrier Formidable, building at Belfast. Important, but he could be spared for a week. He arrived at Ramsgate at noon, June 1, and by 5:30 he was on his way to Dunkirk. He found he had exchanged carrier duty for command of a tug, a launch, and five rowboats.

  Sub-Lieutenant Michael Anthony Chodzko was a young reserve officer attending navigational school at Plymouth. Buried in his books, he didn’t even know there was serious trouble until he was yanked out of class on May 31 and sent by train to Dover. Then, as the train ran along the chalk cliffs just before the station, he glanced out the car window and saw gunfire across the Channel. It was his first inkling of what lay ahead. Next morning, June 1, he was heading for Dunkirk with his first command—a small cabin cruiser called the Aura.

  David Divine wasn’t in the Navy at all. He was a free-lance writer and amateur sailor who naturally gravitated to Dover at the end of May, because that’s where the big story was. Like the other journalists in town, he would stand in the grass that crowned the white cliffs and focus his binoculars on the incredible procession of vessels pouring across the Channel. But unlike the others, the sea ran in his blood, and the more he watched, the more he wanted to be part of this show.

  It wasn’t hard to join. Through his naval writing he had plenty of contacts at the Admiralty, and by May 31 he had the necessary papers that put him in the Navy for 30 days. He went to Ramsgate, looked over the mass of small craft now piling up in the harbor, and picked out for himself a small motor sailor called the Little Ann. With no formal assignment whatsoever, he jumped aboard and began getting her ready for sea. He was soon joined by a kindred soul—Divine never learned his name—and the two of them, with a couple of others, set out for Dunkirk early on June 1.

  Charles Herbert Lightoller was another man who liked to do things his own way. No stranger to danger, he had been Second Officer on the Titanic, where his coolness helped save countless lives that famous night. Now he was 66, retired from the sea, raising chickens in Hertfordshire, but he still had that combination of courage and good humor that served him so well in 1912.

  And he still enjoyed life afloat. His 58-foot power cruiser Sundowner had been carefully designed to his exact specifications, and he liked nothing better than an occasional jaunt up and down the Thames with a party of friends. Once he even had 21 people aboard.

  It was 5 p.m. on May 31 when Lightoller got a cryptic phone call from a friend at the Admiralty, requesting a meeting at 7:00 that evening. I
t turned out that the Navy needed Sundowner at once. Could he get her from the yacht basin at Chiswick down to Ramsgate, where a Navy crew would take over and sail her to Dunkirk?

  Whoever had that idea, Lightoller bristled, had another guess coming. “If anybody is going to take her over, my eldest son and I will.”

  They set out from Ramsgate at 10 on the morning of the 1st. Besides Lightoller and his son Roger, they also had aboard an eighteen-year-old Sea Scout, taken along as a deck hand. Halfway across they encountered three German fighters, but the destroyer Worcester was near and drove them away. It was just as well, because Sundowner was completely unarmed, not even a tin hat aboard.

  Midafternoon, they were off Dunkirk. It was ebb tide, and as he drew alongside the eastern mole, Lightoller realized that the drop was too great from the walkway to Sundowner’s deck. The troops would never be able to manage it. Instead, he berthed alongside a destroyer that was already loading, and his troops crossed over from her. He loaded Sundowner from the bottom up, with Roger in charge below decks.

  No one ever tackled such an unglamorous assignment with more verve than Roger. To lower the center of gravity, he made the men lie down whenever possible. Then he filled every inch of space, even the bath and the “head.”

  “How are you getting on?” Lightoller called below, as the tally passed 50.

  ”Oh, plenty of room yet,” Roger airily replied. At 75 he finally conceded he had enough.

  Lightoller now shifted his efforts to the open deck. Again, the troops were told to lie down and stay down, to keep the ship more stable. Even so, by the time 50 more were aboard, Lightoller could feel Sundowner getting tender. He called it a day and started for home.

  The entire Luftwaffe seemed to be waiting for him. Bombing and strafing, the enemy planes made pass after pass. Fortunately Sundowner could turn on a sixpence, and Lightoller had learned a few tricks from an expert. His youngest son, killed in the first days of the war, had been a bomber pilot and often talked about evasion tactics. The father now put his lost son’s theories to work. The secret was to wait until the last instant, when the enemy plane was already committed, then hard rudder before the pilot could readjust. Squirming and dodging his way across the Channel, Lightoller managed to get Sundowner back to England without a scratch.

  Gliding into Ramsgate at 10 that night, he tied up to a trawler lying next to the quay. The usual group of waterfront onlookers drifted over to watch. All assumed that the 50 men on deck would be Sundowner’s full load—an impressive achievement in itself. But troops continued to pour out of hatches and companionways until a grand total of 130 men were landed. Turning to Lightoller, an astonished bystander could only ask, “God’s truth, mate! Where did you put them?”

  So the evacuation went on. Despite bombs and frayed nerves, 64,429 men were returned this June 1. They ranged from the peppery General Montgomery to Private Bill Hersey, who also managed to embark his French bride, Augusta, now thinly disguised in British battle dress. The number lifted off the beaches fell as the troops pulled back from La Panne, but a record 47,081 were rescued from Dunkirk itself. The eastern mole continued to survive the battering it took from bombs, shells, and inept shiphandling.

  At 3:40 p.m. the small minesweeper Mare edged toward the mole, hoping to pick up one more load of British soldiers waiting on the long wooden walkway. Nothing unusual about that, but then something happened that was completely unprecedented. The captain of a British destroyer lying nearby ordered Mare to proceed instead to the western mole and embark French and Belgian troops. For the first time a British ship was specifically diverted from British to Allied personnel.

  Mare crossed the harbor and found a Portsmouth steam hopper and drifter already working the western mole. Three more minesweepers joined in, and between them the six ships lifted 1,200 poilus in little more than an hour.

  Such endeavors helped produce statistics that were far more significant than any single incident: on June 1 a total of 35,013 French were embarked, as against 29,416 British. At last Winston Churchill had some figures he could take to Paris without embarrassment. For the Royal Navy, bras-dessus, bras-dessous had become an accomplished fact.

  All morning the top command at London, Dover, and Dunkirk watched the pounding of the rescue fleet with growing alarm. Around noon Admiral Drax of The Nore Command at Chatham called the Admiralty’s attention to the mounting destroyer losses. The time had come, he suggested, to stop using them during daylight. Ramsay reluctantly agreed, and at 1:45 p.m. flashed the message, “All destroyers are to return to harbour forthwith.”

  The Malcolm was just starting out on one more trip across the Channel. No ship had better morale, but even Lieutenant Mellis’s bagpipes were no longer enough to lift the men’s spirits. The air was full of stories about sinking ships, and the general feeling was that Malcolm would get it next. Then, as she cleared the breakwater, Ramsay’s message arrived, ordering her back. Mellis felt he now knew how a reprieved prisoner feels.

  The Worcester was just entering Dunkirk harbor, and her skipper, Commander Allison, decided it didn’t make sense to return without picking up one more load at the mole. Packed with troops, she finally pulled out at 5:00 p.m. and immediately came under attack. Wave after wave of Stukas dived on her—three or four squadrons of about nine each—dropping more than 100 bombs. They pressed their attacks home, too, diving as low as 200 to 300 feet. Miraculously, there were no direct hits, but near misses sent giant columns of water over the ship, and bomb splinters riddled her thin steel plates. By the time the attacks tapered off, 46 men lay dead, 180 wounded.

  Watching Worcester’s ordeal from his command post at the foot of the mole, Captain Tennant decided this was enough. At 6:00 p.m. he radioed Ramsay:

  Things are getting very hot for ships; over 100 bombers on ships here since 0530, many casualties. Have directed that no ships sail during daylight. Evacuation by transports therefore ceases at 0300. … If perimeter holds, will complete evacuation tomorrow, Sunday night, including most French. …

  But could the perimeter hold another day? London had its doubts. “Every effort must be made to complete the evacuation tonight,” General Dill had wired Weygand at 2:10 p.m. At 4 o’clock Winston Churchill warned Reynaud by telephone that the evacuation might be stretched out a day longer, but “by waiting too long, we run the risk of losing everything.” As late as 8:00 p.m. Ramsay sent a ringing appeal to his whole rescue fleet, calling for “one last effort.”

  At Dunkirk General Alexander originally felt the same way, but by now he wanted more time. He was determined to get the rest of the BEF home, yet on the morning of June 1 there were still 39,000 British troops in the perimeter, plus 100,000 French. Applying the equal numbers policy, that meant lifting at least 78,000 men in the next 24 hours—obviously impossible.

  At 8:00 a.m. he dropped by Bastion 32 with a new withdrawal plan, extending the evacuation through the night of June 2–3. Admiral Abrial gladly went along: the French had always had greater confidence than the British in holding the perimeter. Toward evening Captain Tennant agreed too. There was no alternative once he made the decision to end daylight operations.

  London still had its doubts, but in the end the chairborne warriors at the Admiralty and War Office had to face an unpleasant truth: they just didn’t know enough to make the decision. At 6:41 General Dill wired Alexander:

  We do not order any fixed moment for evacuation. You are to hold on as long as possible in order that the maximum number of French and British may be evacuated. Impossible from here to judge local situation. In close cooperation with Admiral Abrial you must act in this matter on your own judgment.

  So Alexander now had a green light. The evacuation would continue through the night of June 2–3, as he and Captain Tennant proposed. But success still depended on Tennant’s precondition: “if the perimeter holds.” This was a very big “if” and the answer lay beyond the control of the leaders in London, Dover, or Dunkirk itself.

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  “BEF Evacuated”

  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.