Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind

by Sean Longden

  At 2 p.m., with the sounds of the neighbouring battalions under heavy attack, the Argylls could see a large formation of troops massing nearby. At first it was hoped the 1,200 soldiers were the expected relief from the Black Watch. They soon discovered these were enemy forces preparing for a final assault upon the village. For the rest of the afternoon A Company and the HQ were able to continue to defend their position in Franleu. Enemy advances on the village were repulsed thanks to a section of Royal Northumberland Fusiliers machine-gunners and the sterling work of a single mortar crew.

  Relief was attempted by French tanks and a detachment of Black Watch but these were unable to advance due to enemy resistance. At 5 p.m., with all hope of relief extinguished, a mortar bomb struck the last remaining ammo truck, blowing up and flattening the area around the HQ. Major Younger, who had organized the defence, was hit in the head and eye. Captain Robertson was hit in the leg, and forced to bandage his own legs. Lieutenant Mackay, who had organized the observation post and arranged the feeding of the men, was peppered with shrapnel. RSM Lockie, who had led the earlier anti-sniper patrols, was also hit and CSM Dyer was severely wounded in the arms and legs.

  With their situation desperate, the Argylls were ordered to withdraw to the village of Bouvaincourt. The difficulty was that the forward companies were unable to disengage and retreat – indeed they could not even be contacted. The surrounded B Company were unable to withdraw and nothing more was heard from them.

  At 6 p.m. Colonel Buchanan, realizing the situation was hopeless, gave permission for any men who wished to attempt to break out. Two carriers were able to get away, as did some trucks crammed with men, many of whom were wounded. Some platoons never received the message since they were cut off in the village. All of C Company, whose position faced the main thrust of the assault, were posted as missing. Only the colonel and the padre were left unwounded. Having spent all day offering comfort to the wounded, MacInnes refused to leave them to their fate. At the end of the day he remained inside, along with thirty wounded, the colonel, the French liaison officer and other officers. Mortar bombs continued to land around the HQ and soon all the trucks around it were ablaze.

  In the days that followed it became clear the battalion had been mauled beyond belief. Only D Company, minus the platoon that had earlier fired the surrounded signal, and some from the battalion HQ had been able to extract themselves and withdraw. By the end of that one day’s fighting the battalion had lost twenty-three officers and 500 other ranks killed, wounded or missing.

  That same day the Lothian and Borders Yeomanry also found themselves under attack. At first it was just patrols who advanced on their positions. Their initial approach took them towards the abandoned French tank. Realizing the British troops were waiting, the first German soldier raised his hands in surrender – until one of his comrades shot him for being cowardly. The second German soldier was then shot by waiting men and the patrol scattered. With the Germans safely behind a ridge, the French gun was used to fire over the ridge where they believed the enemy to be. So far so good – or so it seemed. A patrol was sent to make contact with the forward posts, but it never returned.

  With the enemy far from beaten, heavy artillery fire struck their positions, as one of the officers later recorded: ‘After each burst I heard groans. Finally it stopped. At least three men had been killed and about fifteen wounded. Two carriers were loaded and sent off . . . whilst the last carrier was being loaded and the wounded attended to, the Germans appeared at very close range running and firing tommy guns . . . somehow all the wounded and all the guns were got away, there were nine on the last carrier.’15 The intense fire took its toll on both the physical and mental resources of the regiment. Cohesive activity and coherent thought were impossible as the troops struggled to stay alive. In the haste to withdraw, some men, positioned in relative safety within a house, did not hear the order to retreat and were left behind. By the time the mistake had been noticed it was too late to go back and the men were abandoned to their fate.

  Soon enemy dive bombers joined in the fray, their bombs screaming down on to the tanks and crews assembled in the village of Ballilleul: ‘Result – little left.’16 One of the regiment’s squadrons lost forty men out of a total of just sixty-five. As one officer of the regiment later noted: ‘All ranks discovered the use of a hole in the ground, the deeper and narrower the better.’17

  Despite the losses suffered by the division that day, the Highlanders’ ordeal was far from over; 4 June may have seen the end of the Dunkirk evacuation but in Normandy the Highlanders were only at the beginning of their ordeal. Whether infantrymen, tank crews, pioneers, drivers or gunners – officers, NCOs or riflemen – every man of the division was in the firing line. The gunners of the 17th Field Regiment had initially been firing at targets over 8,000 yards away. The range had fallen to 6,000 yards, then fallen again to find themselves firing at targets to their left and right. Eventually the targets they were given were to their rear. At Escarbotin one battery of the regiment found themselves virtually surrounded and firing incessantly at a rapid rate. Unable to fight on, they took the firing mechanism from the guns and withdrew on the gun tractors. Elsewhere C Troop were sent with rifles and Bren guns to help protect A Troop, who were firing at the enemy at point-blank range. Despite the help, they were soon surrounded and captured. Another battery reported coming under mortar fire at a range of 1,000 yards while enemy machine-gunners fired at them from the rear. With further resistance pointless, one battery gave a surprisingly cheery final message over the wireless: ‘Cheerio, coming to join you.’18

  As the gunners pulled back they came under attack from the air. Peter Royle later wrote of the experience: ‘I lay on my back in the open field and watched the JU87s screaming down vertically before loosing off their bombs and zooming away. I watched the bombs leave each plane – sometimes two, sometimes four, at a time – and they always seemed to be aimed at me personally. Of course they never were, and I always breathed a sigh of relief when they went on and hit somebody else.’19

  With units throughout the division coming under increased pressure, it was little wonder that some found themselves split off from the main force – isolated and seemingly abandoned in the chaos. Two companies of the 8th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders found themselves holding a lighthouse and school buildings at Ault, near St-Valery-sur-Somme. They were soon engaged by German tanks which were able to remain under cover while still being able to bombard their positions. Initially it seemed the assault was ‘frightening but not dangerous’,20 but as the fire increased it soon became clear their position was untenable. Quick-firing cannon peppered the school and lighthouse, causing casualties from shell splinters and causing French sailors within to surrender en masse. Despite this surrender, the enemy did not press home the attack, one officer considering this to be because it was merely ‘an exhibition of frightfulness to give us a sleepless night and a foretaste for the next day’.21

  Fortunately for the Highlanders, they did not await the final assault. Instead they withdrew overnight towards Le Tréport in hope of rejoining the division. The orders for the night march were that if attacked they should fight to the last round, then try to escape. Any wounded, if they were unable to be moved, were to be left behind. Luckily they met no enemy resistance during the night and the next day they laid up in open countryside. With little shelter, they were forced to lie in the oppressive sunshine, unable to move for fear of revealing their positions.

  At nightfall they headed west, coming under fire from German sentries who soon scattered into the night when the Highlanders returned their fire. Alerted to their presence, the Germans sent spotter planes firing parachute flares across the countryside to illuminate the area. Avoiding the light of the flares, the two companies were able to continue their journey and eventually reached positions held by the Black Watch.

  With any hope of driving the enemy back over the Somme at Abbeville extinguished, the division withdrew t
o attempt to hold the River Bresle. The Highlanders were reinforced by A Brigade, consisting of the 4th Border Regiment, 5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters and the 4th Buffs, who had been sent north from Rouen to help hold the line, along with 900 reinforcements for the infantry battalions. But they continued to come under intense pressure. Again David Mowatt found himself in the thick of the action:

  It was bloody terrible, it was difficult for me as the company runner. I had to be in contact with the three platoons – we’d be pulling back and re-forming and my first job was to find where they were. The River Bresle was my worst time, but I’d got to get to the platoons. My old platoon, No. 16, were holding the bridge. Word came through that Jerry were on the other bank of the river and the artillery were going to shell them. So our company had to pull back behind the railway embankment for safety. I had to go to tell them to pull back.

  He reached the bridge and gave the message to the defenders, then was forced to dash to reach another platoon in an exposed position:

  I went out but I was under heavy machine-gun fire – there were bloody bullets everywhere. I got behind the iron wheels of an old railway engine. Bullets were coming at me and pinging off the wheels, landing just in front of me. So I crept out. I did the old trick of putting my tin hat out on the end of my rifle. Nothing came – they were still firing at the other end of the train. I was safe! So I got up and ran across this level ground. Suddenly I saw this ditch and dived into it. It was full of old engine oil from the trains! But I was safe. So I crawled down and reached the next platoon. I gave the message to the officer but he warned me it would be difficult to reach the next platoon since they were covered by machine-guns – but I had no choice.

  Continuing to crawl along the oil-filled ditch, Mowatt eventually reached the next platoon, where he asked for the officer. The reply shocked him: ‘He’s dead.’

  What came next was even less comforting: ‘I asked “Where’s the sergeant?” They said “Killed.” So I said “Where’s the corporal?” and again they said “Killed.” So I said “Who’s in charge?” They pointed to Lance-Corporal Rose, who was in command of the whole platoon. I told him they’d got to get back over the embankment. So we all crawled back so the machine-guns couldn’t see us.’ Reaching the embankment, the lance-corporal – uncertain of his new-found role as a platoon commander – asked Mowatt what he thought they should do: ‘I told him no one had spotted us so far, cause we were in the long grass. I said we should get all the boys over together, if we went in ones and twos we’d be spotted. So we rushed over the top and all of us reached safety.’

  If David Mowatt thought he had indulged in enough heroics for one day, he was wrong. With the tide of battle turning against the 51st, every man was required to go beyond the call of duty. Arriving back at the company HQ, he was informed he would have to return to the bridge to collect the Bren guns left behind during the withdrawal. The company commander sent him and a mate, Jock Swanson, to join an officer in a carrier. They were to rush to the bridge and return with the guns to complete the mission:

  It was a straight road, down an incline, to the bridge. We went about twenty yards and the carrier stopped. I could see paint chipping off from the inside of the carrier – it was armour-piercing bullets coming through. The driver was killed, so was the officer and the sergeant, Kenny Ross, was screaming his head off. He couldn’t get out, his legs had been shot to pieces. I said to Jock, ‘Try to get the sergeant out, I’ll nip down and get the guns.’ So I ducked down over the bank, fetched the Bren guns and ran back to the carrier. When I returned Jock was still struggling to pull Kenny Ross clear. But between us we managed to pull him out. Jock carried him on his shoulders and I carried the guns, and we managed to get back to the company HQ.

  With the tide of battle turning against the Highlanders there was no choice but to retreat. Or as Jim Pearce, a loader on a Vickers machine-gun put it, in the words of a song popular at the time, it soon became a case of ‘Run rabbit run’. During the phoney war, when they had sung that song the troops had envisaged Hitler and his forces running away. Now they realized that was not going to happen. As Pearce soon discovered, the only running the Germans were doing was directly towards their positions: ‘I was feeding the gun – we kept firing but they kept coming in waves – they didn’t seem to give in. I felt horrible – think about it, we were killing all these people – but they wouldn’t stop coming. We were just firing and firing. Oh dear. But you do it automatically. Looking back, it doesn’t seem possible but you’ve been trained to do it. Your nerves take over. You have to defend yourself – you want to save yourself.’

  It was clear if the Highlanders continued to take casualties at such a high rate they would soon be but a shadow of a division. By 7 June the 7th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders reported their depleted force consisted of just five officers and 130 other ranks. Only the remains of D Company and the men from the rear echelon were still fighting. With their situation reported, they lost two more men killed and eleven wounded before the day was over.

  Through the valiant sacrifice of the Highlanders, the division held the line of the River Bresle until 8 June. Then, with the news that enemy formations had broken through in the south, cutting them off from their supply base at Rouen, it became clear their position was no longer tenable. The following morning, the arrival of Royal Navy representatives to discuss the evacuation of the division from Le Havre marked the end of the uncertainty. It was now no longer a matter of how long could they keep fighting, rather how soon could they make their escape.

  As the division fell back from the Somme valley, the Highlanders conducted a fighting retreat. Their world was absorbed by the battles they fought. There was no time for thoughts about the rest of the BEF. To them, Dunkirk was just the name of a Channel port – just another French town – the growing legend of the evacuation was unknown and meaningless. Unlike their comrades who had sailed home, they were not yet safe. Their war continued to take a heavy toll. Hour by hour, day by day, the division established new positions, engaged the enemy and then withdrew, always uncertain where they might be heading.

  For the soldiers it was a harrowing time. Lack of food, lack of sleep, sheer physical and mental exhaustion, meant few could ever build up a clear picture of all they experienced in those final days of battle. Even if they could summon up the strength to keep marching – walking mile after mile in a virtual daze – all realized they could not continue to fight unless assistance was forthcoming. One battalion reported the daily ration was just two sugar lumps and two tablespoons of mixed carrot and potatoes per man – hardly enough to keep them awake, let alone keep them fighting. Food and cigarettes would have cheered them but without replenishing their ammunition supplies the battle would be a foregone conclusion. So it was with despair that officers of the battalion admitted they had been unable to find the trainload of ammunition that had been destined to supply the Highlanders for their retreat to the coast.

  As they marched, fully exposed, along the straight roads – with nowhere to shelter but beneath the flanking poplar trees – the Highlanders faced the same hazards their comrades to the north had faced during their retreat to Dunkirk. ‘We got quite a few German planes coming over,’ recalled Seaforth Highlander Jim Reed, ‘and they dive bombed us. I began to take things seriously when one or two of the lads got killed. Someone would tell you “So and so got shot this morning.” So you’d think, I’ve got to be a bit careful here.’

  Like their comrades who had fought in Flanders, the Highlanders were affected by these aerial attacks. As Jim Charters, a machine-gunner in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers recalled: ‘Seeing refugees being machine-gunned and bombed was the worst moment of my whole war. The Germans did it to impede our retreat. It was a shock to see it, but after the first few days we got used to seeing people getting hurt. Mortars and Stukas were the things we feared the most. The bombs had their sirens on and howled when they were coming down at us. But during the retreat I
think we were in a stupor most of the time.’

  For many it was the terrible sense of helplessness that had the greatest impact upon them. Seaforth Highlander Jim Reed also watched as dive bombers destroyed columns of refugees, machine-gunning the women and children as they scattered to reach safety. When the attacks were over there were civilians – old men, women and children – all crying for help. There were upturned prams scattered amid the corpses and wounded people pleading for assistance from the British soldiers. But there was nothing they could do, there were no medical supplies to be given away and no time could be lost on the retreat. Jim Reed’s words expressed the sense of regret felt by the troops as they left the civilians to fend for themselves: ‘They were helpless. You want to help them but there’s nothing you can do. It was the saddest day of my war.’