The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  “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.