The Defence of Calais

by Eric Linklater

  The scratch company of the Rifle Brigade, apparently, was most unwilling to abandon its eastward thrust; At some time during the night a subaltern in a Bren-carrier reported, by wireless telephone, that his platoon was almost surrounded: should he retire? He was perfectly calm, and anxious only to do the proper thing. He was told that the proper thing was to remember his orders and use his judgment.

  Half an hour later they spoke to him again. He was still in the same position, in the same mood, and the same danger. It was almost impossible to estimate the whole situation, but it was lively. Somewhere, not far away, a Rifleman with a Bren gun had killed a full dozen of Germans. But the Germans were in vastly greater strength. The subaltern was authorised to withdraw his platoon.

  Another half-hour went by, and again his voice came over the air. No, he hadn’t yet begun to move, but now he really thought he would have to retire. He was still unperturbed, his only anxiety was still to do the proper thing. Withdraw immediately, he was told, and he acknowledged the order. But the dominant note in his voice was reluctance.

  Early on Thursday the Canadian Division, in England, was warned to prepare an Infantry Brigade Group to reinforce the Calais garrison. This movement was never made, as the situation, both local and general, deteriorated too rapidly. But half an hour before midnight on Thursday, General McNaughton arrived in Calais and reconnoitred the position. He found some fires burning in the town, and the population nervous. There was scattered sniping in the streets, from the enemy’s Fifth Column. We had eight anti-tank guns in defensive positions on the principal roads, and the main canals were effective tank-obstacles.

  He returned to England with the assurance that our troops were in good heart.

  VI. Friday the Twenty-fourth

  The day began badly. The Brigadier knew that he might be ordered to evacuate Calais at short notice, and to him, having already discovered the impossibility of achieving his initial purpose and reaching Dunkirk—of establishing and holding lines of communication between Calais and Dunkirk—such an order would surely have appeared most sweetly reasonable.

  At seven o’clock in the morning he discussed the situation with Colonel Keller and they debated what should be done with the tanks if the order came. It was considered important that the cruiser tanks should not fall into the enemy’s hands, and it was decided that they would have to be burnt.

  Two ships had come into the harbour during the night. One left early, but the other, the Kohistan, stood by to embark wounded, refugees and more non-combatants. Men of B Echelon of the Tank Regiment—transport-drivers and others—were ordered to go aboard. The ship sailed before noon, and its last sight of Calais was grim enough. Shell-fire during the night and morning had started fires in the town. The bombardment was growing heavier, the fires were spreading. A veil of smoke lay over the roofs, and the prospect of evacuation had been withdrawn.

  Yet those who remained were not dismayed, for when the Kohistan was moving from the quay and pointing to go out, the Captain looked down from his bridge and saw, beside the Gare Maritime, a Company of the Rifle Brigade waving their hands and cheering the ship as it put to sea and left them to their battle.

  Dawn patrols of the 60th, on roads leading westward and south-westward of the town, had met strong opposition about half a mile away and failed. to make contact with the detachment at Sangatte. The German advance continued, and throughout the day there was fighting round the outer perimeter. The Tank battalion, its strength reduced by mechanical faults and by its losses in the skirmish at Guines, was again in action. A strong sortie drove out a German force that, in the morning, pierced the southern perimeter, and patrolling was continued through the streets. But then, before there came the decisive order that the defence of Calais must be maintained, and because the cruisers must by no chance be left in the enemy’s possession, a start was made with burning them. Two were set on fire. And while the flames were licking their sides an urgent message arrived that all tanks were wanted, immediately, on the western front.

  A Squadron was sent there—or the remnants of a Squadron—and the remnants did some brisk and gallant work in the western neighbourhood of Les Fontinettes. There was stubborn infantry fighting on the perimeter there, but the sight of the tanks in action won the admiring attention of some Riflemen of the 60th, one of whom reported that he saw our cruisers—though there could not have been more than three or four—enclosing a herd of German tanks, driving round and round them, and shooting into their mass with deadly effect.

  When the immediate threat had been dispelled, the tanks were ordered to return into the town. But one remained with the 60th, and by the following morning the Corporal in command of it had a very pretty score: he had knocked out eight of the enemy’s tanks, including a heavyweight.

  Thirst—Bombardment—Fifth Columnists

  The weather was hot, and in some places the troops were already suffering from thirst: very early in the bombardment the water-mains had been cut. But here and there a shop or estaminet was still open, and it was possible to obtain wine. A Corporal of Queen Victoria’s Rifles was sent by his platoon officer to buy half a dozen bottles for some thirsty soldiers; and surely it is a pleasant comment on the manners of these men that, in a besieged and burning town, which they were defending, they neither looted nor requisitioned their wine, but with great calm and dignity enquired the price, and paid it.

  The enemy continued to press his attack. The bombardment grew heavier, and all round the perimeter the German tanks and infantry were probing for weakness. Dead Riflemen lay on the embankment to prove their own and the enemy’s persistence. The Fifth Column became increasingly active. German snipers, in civilian dress, had found positions in top-storey windows, and they had established, within the town, observation posts both for their field batteries and mortars. These irregulars were of great value to the enemy, and we could not deal effectively with them because we could not spare from the perimeter sufficient men to smoke them out. The civilian population, or as much of it as remained in Calais, had gone to ground in their cellars.

  In the early afternoon there came news that a German column of two hundred tanks was on its way to Calais from Wissant, a plage between Calais and Boulogne. Nicholson was given some air support against this attack. But shortly after two o’clock he reported that he was being hard pressed, and doubted if he could hold his forward line for long without reinforcements. He was, at that time, in direct communication with the War Office by telephone. If the enemy should break through, he said, he had no reserves to meet them. Nor had he any reserve of small arms ammunition. The so-called inner perimeter, on which he might fall back, was not well suited for defence, as it permitted no observation.

  The War Office replied that ammunition was being sent to him in a drifter, and the Royal Air Force would give him all the support in its power.

  The two destroyers patrolling off-shore did good service, and during the previous night they had fought a spirited engagement with the German field-batteries. But there was a battery about three miles west of the town that was doing a lot of damage, and these guns unfortunately were not visible from the sea.

  The enemy’s attack reached a climax about three o’clock. The western perimeter was again in danger, and Lieut.-Colonel Miller, commanding the 60th, informed Brigade Headquarters that it was doubtful if it could be held much longer. The Brigadier, whose Headquarters had till then been in the Boulevard Léon Gambetta, removed them to the Gare Maritime and detached a platoon of the Rifle Brigade to reinforce the 60th. With this platoon Miller formed a strong point in the centre of the town, near the Place du Théâtre, and then made a tour of the perimeter. The situation by then had slightly improved.

  Withdrawal from Outer Perimeter

  The perimeter was held until dark, though by six o’clock there were breaches in it; the Germans, whose attack throughout was most resolute and searching, were filtering in from the south. This daylong defence of the outer line had protected the port of Ca
lais from fire, and shipping could still use it. The Royal Navy, indeed, continued to use it for as long as there was reason, and motor-boats that had been built for idle days on the Solent came in and out of the shell-pocked, smoky harbour, bringing messages and removing wounded, with intrepid assurance.

  When darkness fell the 60th, the Rifle Brigade, and detachments of Queen Victoria’s Rifles made a general retirement to the inner perimeter: a line, that is, enclosing the dock area, the old town, and the Petit Courgain. A Company of the 60th continued to hold its exposed position on the west of Fort Risban, and the Rifle Brigade were along the Canal de Calais and the Canal de Marck, on the old ramparts running north from the Porte de Marck and on the dunes.

  A Company of Queen Victoria’s Rifles, which had been holding an eastward position near the original assembly area, had been out of touch all day with one of its platoons. The platoon was well forward, in an old redoubt with railway lines behind it and a canal on one flank. The Germans were on two sides of it, and sniping it from the canal bank and the bridge across the railway. The platoon appeared to be in a hopeless situation, but it held off the enemy’s attack till dark, and successfully withdrew. The men had had nothing to eat or drink, and they were very tired. But what finally compelled them to withdraw was lack of ammunition. They had fired their last round.

  Just before midnight Nicholson was informed that a Brigade Group of the 48th Division had started that morning to march to his assistance. But nothing more was heard of this relief. Two Brigades of the 48th Division were then in the neighbourhood of Dunkirk, but very weary. Not long after the arrival of this news—this vain hope—the direct line to London was cut.

  During the night one of our destroyers entered the harbour, narrowly missed by shell-fire, and landed some ammunition. Admiral Somerville, who was on board, saw Nicholson and heard from him that during the two days of fighting a number of German tanks had been destroyed, and the enemy had taken fairly severe punishment. The Germans appeared, at the moment, to be short of ammunition. We also had had a good many casualties, and Nicholson emphasised his need of guns. He had two light anti-aircraft guns, and both two-inch and three-inch mortars; but he was desperately short of mortar ammunition.

  The anti-tank guns had all been used singly to cover the main approaches. Half of them were out of action when the long perimeter was abandoned, and by Saturday morning only two remained. Their final positions were near the harbour.

  Admiral Somerville reported that Nicholson was tired, but calm.

  VII. Saturday the Twenty-fifth

  Five officers and about a hundred and twenty men of an anti-aircraft battery of Royal Artillery came into Calais late on Friday night. They had fought their way down from Belgium. They had, before destroying them, been using their guns against unorthodox targets: not against aeroplanes, but German tanks.

  They came into Calais in good order and with a great air of confidence. They had between them half a dozen revolvers, about twenty rifles, and two anti-tank rifles. They slept at the Gare Maritime, and in the morning paraded on the station square. They looked smart and clean. Their officers inspected them, and they stood at ease. Then a voice rang out, and the square re-echoed the stamp of their obedient boots. Rigid, without a movement, they waited the arrival of their Commanding Officer. They were the weary remainder of their regiment; they had been fighting or marching for three weeks; they were in the smouldering heart of a lost town—but in the opinion of the Major who commanded them these misfortunes were by no means grave enough to interfere with discipline. They were soldiers, and like soldiers they behaved.

  Though the honour of the defence of Calais belongs essentially to the Rifle Regiments and the Tank battalion, there were fragments of many other units that had their share in it. There were these imperturbable Gunners. There had been a Searchlight Regiment stationed in the neighbourhood of Calais, and its men, in their isolated posts, must have been the first to meet the German advance. Its Regimental Headquarters were in a farm, and the farm became a fortress that was stubbornly held by a few officers and a team of despatch-riders, signallers, clerks, cooks and batmen. Fragments of the Searchlight Regiment fell back on Calais, and on Saturday, when the battle was fought round the inner perimeter, about seventy of its men were in the line with the 60th. They, and other remnants, came demanding a share in the defence: men of the Royal Army Service Corps, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, a few Military Police.

  The Military Police, it appears, held the same stern view as the Major commanding the anti-aircraft battery: that war should not be allowed to interfere with discipline. A Rifleman of Queen Victoria’s Rifles reports that on this Saturday, when Calais was very like inferno and he was running down a ruined street with a message, he was halted by a Red Cap, who admonished him and took his name for being improperly dressed, in that he was not carrying his respirator.

  Nearly a hundred Royal Marines were landed, and shared with the French the task of defending the Citadel after the Brigadier had made his Headquarters there. Though there were many French troops, in Calais or near it, who were demoralised and took no part in the defence, there were others who fought with sparkling courage. There was, for instance, a French field-gun in the Pare St. Pierre. It was served, with skill and stubborn bravery, by French gunners till they were overwhelmed. There were French soldiers, under no command but their own will, who went cleverly stalking the German snipers. Not all Frenchmen succumbed to the malady of defeat, and those who were immune to it maintained, with élan and tenacity of purpose, the tradition of gallantry that France more truly wears.

  There were, it may be, still others who played an honourable part, and shared with the Riflemen the Burden and the glory: the record is incomplete. Nor can the battle be described in all its details, for as it grew fiercer it became more confused. It became an affair of street-corners, bridges, and upstair windows.

  Attacked from All Sides

  The night had been comparatively quiet, and in the early morning two subalterns of the Rifle Brigade, in a Bren carrier, made an independent reconnaissance in Calais-Sud and found it nearly empty. But when the attack began, it was pressed throughout the day with growing weight. The Germans were using the full strength of two Panzer divisions. Their artillery directed heavy neutralising fire on our positions, and this was followed by strong infantry attack with tanks in support.

  New forces of motor-borne German infantry arrived, and joined the action. The enemy’s intense desire to make a quick finish of Calais, and move on, was very evident: prisoners taken about this time were closely questioned about the state of affairs in the old town and the Citadel. The town was completely invested, and the attack came from all sides.

  At three o’clock there began a concentrated bombardment which lasted for three hours. Air-bombing, however, was not severe. Oil-tanks west of the town had been set on fire, and a roof of black smoke made some protection against the Luftwaffe.

  Nicholson had now established Brigade Headquarters in the Citadel—a sixteenth-century structure, the principal remnant of the old fortifications—which was held by about eight hundred French troops. His rear headquarters remained at the Gare Maritime. Since the cutting of the direct line to London he had been using a wireless set that gave him communication with Dover; but this set was put out of action some time on Saturday evening, and thereafter he had to use runners to his rear headquarters at the Gare Maritime, where there was also a transmitter.

  At half-past four in the afternoon he sent out his last direct message from the Citadel. He reported heavy shelling, and said that his troops were holding the northern part of the town. His greatest need was guns. He asked also for air support. He wanted a bomber force to attack the enemy’s batteries, and any troops seen outside the inner perimeter.

  These demands were not neglected. The War Office, from which the 30th Brigade was directly administered, was making arrangements to send nine 3.7-in. howitzers to Dover for shipment to Calais—though the landing of such g
uns would, in the circumstances, be difficult—but the march of events became too precipitate for the movement to be completed. Verity and Windsor, however, the never-resting destroyers, continued to engage the German batteries whenever that was possible.

  The 60th Gave a Party

  Half a company of the 60th had made a defensive position in a hotel near the Post Office. The afternoon bombardment set on fire most of the houses in the neighbourhood, and discouraged unnecessary movement through the streets. Look-outs were therefore posted in the upper parts of the hotel, and the remainder of the half-company gathered on the ground floor. There was a piano in the hotel, and happily some remaining wine. The 60th gave a party. They themselves were their only guests, but that was good enough company, and the party went well. They crowded round the piano and sang lustily against the shattering noises of the bombardment.

  Then the barrage stopped, and the German tanks came in. The party broke up. An officer, taking a pair of anti-tank rifles, lay down on the pavement in front of the hotel. The weather was warm, and burning houses aggravated the heat of the sun. The officer lay in his shirt-sleeves. A Rifleman beside him acted as loader, and as the German tanks came racing past, shooting at everything in sight, he maintained with his pair of rifles steady fire against them. He put two out of action. The next morning, Sunday that is, he was killed by a sniper.