Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind

by Sean Longden

  The daily marches varied in length. One man recorded how his group had marched from Boulogne to Hesdin, via Montreuil, a total of thirty-six miles (fifty-eight kilometres). They were given just one hour’s break during the entire march. The Geneva Convention stated the maximum daily distance for any march should be twelve miles (twenty kilometres). As one soldier recalled, whenever he asked the guards how much further they had to go the answer was always the same – ‘Three kilometres’. That became the terrible reality for the marchers – it always seemed that rest was somewhere in the distance, just over the next hill, in the next village, another mile, another hour, another day.

  A group whose march began in Calais found themselves forced to march even further. They were on the road for an entire twenty-four-hour period, with breaks of just twenty minutes every three or four hours. At the end of their twenty-four-hour march they were given one hour’s rest, then sent out on to the road for another twenty-four hours. During the entire period they were given no food. Those who fell out from the column were shot. This almost constant marching continued for six days. When the British government attempted to complain about the treatment given to the men in the columns they were brushed off by the Germans. Replying via Switzerland, the Germans stated they had ‘no information regarding charges of bad transport conditions of British prisoners of war between places of capture and prison camps but will investigate further, if the British government can give information as to the date and place of alleged offences’.3

  Some groups found themselves marching in circles. Suddenly, after miles of marching, they found themselves back in a village they had already passed through. It soon appeared this was a deliberate policy. They were being paraded through as many villages as possible to show off the fruits of the German triumph and reinforce the notion that the Allies had been hopelessly crushed. One of the circuits, taking in the towns of Douai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Mons and Hal, lasted a total of fourteen days. A United Nations report later summarized the situation: ‘It shows the state of the German mind in regard to this barbarous practice long since discarded by civilized nations.’4

  Overnight stops were made in all manner of locations, a waterlogged field, a dung-covered farmyard, a dry weed-infested castle moat, or a sports stadium, depending on circumstances. In the main, the prisoners had to make do with sleeping outdoors, curled up on the bare earth, hoping and praying it wouldn’t rain during the night. As one witness reported back to London: ‘Men are kept in pens without any protection from the weather.’5 It was not always the rain that proved a problem for the prisoners. At Jemelles 4,000–5,000 British and French prisoners were held in the open air. Under assault from the summer sun, they were forced to scrape holes into the hillside in order to escape its rays.

  During the breaks in the march many prisoners began to regret the loss of their kit. Many had lost everything apart from the clothes they stood up in when they were captured. As Les Allan marched, mostly surrounded by Frenchmen, he could not help but notice some men far worse off than himself. He may have been wounded in the neck, and have lost all his kit, his papers and his battledress jacket but, compared with some of the British gunners he saw on the march, he was well prepared. They had been manning their guns under the hot summer sun dressed in little more than boots, vests and shorts when they had been captured. A few were even topless. Yet they too, like everyone else, just had to keep marching, desperately hoping they might soon find some abandoned clothing to cover their exposed flesh.

  The story was the same everywhere. Some had their steel helmets, but many did not. A lucky few had greatcoats that were a burden in daytime, but made for a comfortable blanket at night. Others blessed the groundsheets and gas capes they had saved to shelter them from the rain. But they were the minority. Those who had not lost their kit in battle had lost it when their captors had searched them.

  As a result the soldiers picked up whatever they could find to make their lives more comfortable. For as long as they had the strength to carry kit, many broke into homes in the villages they passed through, taking whatever they needed. Some tied blankets and eiderdowns around their bodies with string, others slung pots and kettles over their shoulders so they might have something to cook food in – if they were lucky enough to find any. One officer, desperate for something to cover himself with in the cold of night, found a discarded greatcoat. This was surely the answer to his prayers. Then he noticed it was heavily stained with the blood of its former owner. He preferred to remain cold rather than be wrapped in something a man had died in and soon abandoned the coat. Days later, the same officer watched as his comrades began to abandon their own coats as they became too tired to carry them any longer. One officer abandoned an almost new sheepskin-lined coat that had cost £10. However, despite the obvious value and use of such an item, no one had the strength to pick it up and carry it.

  Weighed down by whatever little they were carrying, the troops craved nothing more than the short breaks and overnight stops that allowed them to rest their aching limbs – if only for a few minutes. Many soon realized there was a trick to ensuring they maximized the time spent resting. As Ken Willats remembered: ‘The column was just one long trail of men shuffling into captivity. The trick was not to be at the back of the column. Because if you are at the back, when it gets to a rest stop you get there last. Consequently those at the back are only just arriving when the front of the column is told it’s time to get moving again.’

  The scenes of misery were spread across the region. One witness sent word via Switzerland of starving men clothed in rags held in cattle pens near Antwerp. His report also noted it was clear that the British soldiers were being discriminated against, and the French and Belgian troops were receiving favourable treatment. When the local Red Cross attempted to intervene they were told that if they wished to feed the British they would also have to feed the guards. Elsewhere there were reports of prisoners pushing wounded men in wheelbarrows.

  Deliberate attempts to humiliate the British prisoners were also reported by the American naval attaché, who reported seeing British prisoners in the town of Cambrai. Many had had their boots taken away, others were dressed in a bizarre manner including: ‘old bowlers crammed down, women’s hats and articles taken from fancy shops in order to make them look ridiculous’.6 It was little wonder the American embassy soon reported they were forbidden to visit the prisoners despite their position of being the protecting power.

  Each night, as they fell to the bare earth to sleep for a few short hours, it seemed as if an awful burden had been lifted from their shoulders. Yet there was a down side to the experience. Though they craved nothing – except maybe food – more than sleep, they had to endure the terrible realization that the night would soon be over. Then they would rise once more and begin to march for another day. As the days passed this became something that weighed more and more heavily on them. The more exhausted they became, the longer it took to recover what little strength they retained, making it increasingly painful to rise from the cold earth and loosen their tight muscles each morning.

  The nightly halts were seldom an opportunity for the prisoners to fully relax. Private Watt, marching from St Valery, later recorded: ‘A lot of thieving took place in these camps. Coats were taken off sleeping figures, also boots. Haversacks were being stolen at every opportunity, just in case they happened to contain any food. We always had to have someone to look after our meagre belongings while the rest were on the eternal search for food.’7

  There was something increasingly primeval about the behaviour of the prisoners as the marches progressed. In sandy soil, the prisoners were able to scratch small hollows to lower themselves into. When sleeping among trees they pulled small branches down to construct nests. In some places prisoners were forced into partially flooded fields. Here men fought each other for the right to rest at the top of the slope – the area that remained relatively dry. It was a bitter experience for those unable to fight their way to the top �
�� but all now realized what counted from now on was the survival of the fittest.

  The prison in the French town of Doullens was one location used for overnight stops. RAMC prisoner Norman Barnett had the misfortune of spending his twentieth birthday there. He arrived to find the prison had already been used by numerous men. As a result it was filthy and there was little food or water: ‘It was a big compound. We were mixed up with these Senegalese troops. They must have been there some time ’cause they were well established, they’d even got food from somewhere. We only got water though. But they were dirty bastards – there was shit everywhere. And you were lucky to get somewhere to sit down. Luckily we were only there one night – I preferred sleeping out in the fields than staying there. I was glad to get away.’

  As another column entered the prison, the new arrivals were greeted by the sight of German guards scattering biscuits to them from the back of a lorry. There were only enough for the early arrivals and those at the rear of the column went hungry. Arriving at the prison, some witnessed the Germans executing a sergeant who dared to remonstrate with guards for beating one of the men trailing at the end of the column.

  Graham King, the medic who had been captured before he and his comrades had been able to establish their casualty clearing station, was among the men who spent a night in the dubious shelter of Doullens prison: ‘By the time our group arrived the building was packed and we had to rest on the stony ground where we soon fell asleep. In the middle of the night a huge storm broke over us and in no time we were wet through. I thought of my mother and the way she would panic if any of us got wet. I was glad she wasn’t able to see her youngest son completely drenched, no hot mustard bath, no dry clothing. He was on his own.’

  Not every overnight stop was so fraught with danger. At Frévent marchers recalled arriving at a factory to be greeted by the sight of a perfectly attired sergeant major of the Welsh Guards, complete with clean-shaven chin, who was holding a steaming cup of tea. It was a bizarre sight for men who had not had a hot meal or drink for over four days.

  Of all the things experienced on the march into Germany, one thing made the greatest impression upon the prisoners. What mattered more than anything was the shortage of food. The marching may have blistered their feet and left their legs aching, but nothing was more important than the fact they often had almost nothing with which to sustain themselves. As a result, they relied on their meagre reserves of fat, something that was soon used up as they marched mile upon mile towards Germany.

  The men captured at Calais were among the first to join the marching hordes. Their spirited defence of the port, against all odds, may have won time for the remainder of the BEF to escape. But all it had earned the defenders of Calais were bitter memories, exhaustion and hunger. Yet as they began to march there was little chance to satisfy their aching bellies. In such circumstances, even a single egg was manna from heaven. When Lt-Colonel Ellison-MacArtney found one, he offered it to all his men in turn. Yet all refused, insisting their CO deserved that rare treat. On the sixth day of the march they each received a ration of thin barley soup with half an ounce of sausage. The next morning they received green and mildewed loaves that had to be shared one between ten. One soldier described his soup ration as ‘nothing more than dirty water cooked in a pig-trough’.8 The story was the same everywhere. It was the beginning of the process in which the hungry prisoners discovered that an empty belly was the one thing guaranteed to stop a soldier thinking of women. It was a bitter experience that would follow them for the next five years.

  Those who eventually managed to pass reports of their ill-treatment back to the UK highlighted the poor food. For many, it was not just the question of rations being issued. As the almost inevitable soup was ladled out there were many who had nothing to collect it in. Having lost so much of their kit, they had no mess tins to hold out. Discarded rusting cans were pounced on at the roadside. Some improvised, holding out their steel helmets. One desperate man even took off his boot and held that out to receive his soup ration. When Fred Gilbert, already weakened by three bullet wounds and long days of marching, found himself in a food queue without a receptacle, he did the only thing possible, he stretched out his cupped hands and accepted a handful of soup. That was his entire ration for the day.

  The men craved the taste of the nicotine that had always previously helped to suppress hunger, yet only the luckiest among them still had any tobacco. The pipe-smokers fared best. They crammed their pipes into the corners of their mouths and marched onwards, as Eric Reeves remembered: ‘I didn’t have any tobacco but I had my pipe. You can still suck on an empty pipe and get a lot of enjoyment, you get the taste and smell of nicotine.’

  The last substantial group to join the eastward march were the men of the 51st Highland Division. Three weeks after the first prisoners had started marching, the Jocks rose from their barbed-wire enclosure on the cliffs above St Valery. After a night in the open, one group of prisoners were fed raw salted herring and black bread. Such was the foul taste of the fish that most immediately threw it away. It would be the last time they would reject food, however sickening. The next morning the same men were given a cup of coffee and two British Army hard tack biscuits. Another group watched as a German lorry drew up. Stopping beside the fence surrounding the prisoners, the Germans on board began to throw loaves of bread to the famished men. As the men fought over the loaves, scrabbling in the rain-soaked grass for a handful of crumbs, the purpose of their visit was revealed. As the Germans shouted, ‘England kaput!’ to their prisoners, the men looked up to see a film crew recording their desperate fights for the consumption of audiences eager to witness the German mastery over their British enemies.

  The humiliation was just the start of their misery. In the course of their ten-day march, some remnants of the Highland Division did get the occasional food issue. During one stop a soup ration appeared but it was insufficient to feed everyone in the column. An officer made an announcement that the NCOs should divide the men into groups by their units and then draw lots for who would get the soup. The plan was that they would be ineligible for the next ration. Some men recorded receiving a pack of hard tack biscuits to share between three men each day and, as one man recalled, a cup of black liquid ‘said to be coffee’.9 Others, like Jim Pearce, received nothing more than a lump of bread, green with mould: ‘So we lost weight rapidly.’

  One group was offered rations by their guards on the proviso that they dug latrines for the column. Despite the lure of food they were simply too weak to break the shovels through the soil. Another were pleased to find they had stopped beside a duck pond. As many as possible pulled off their boots and wallowed in the murky waters, revelling in the relief it brought to their aching feet and filthy bodies.

  For those who retained some strength the nightly breaks meant an opportunity to beg, steal or scrounge whatever food was available. Dandelions, dock leaves, daisies and any other roadside weeds became a regular part of their diets. One man recalled boiling nettles in his tin helmet to make what passed for nettle soup. On another occasion the same man paid 50 francs to French colonial troops who had slaughtered a cow. His share of the kill was the unwashed tripe. Another soldier reported that his best night on the march was the one when he somehow managed to find a chicken. The chicken was soon killed, plucked and boiled in a discarded French helmet. Such fare was a luxury. One group of men marching from St Valery caught a dog and stewed it. However, the food carried by a group of French Moroccans was too extreme for even the most desperate British prisoners. The soldiers were aware that whatever the men were carrying was giving off a foul smell. When a German soldier made them open the sack, its contents were revealed. A rotten horse’s head fell to the floor, alive with maggots.

  The prisoners – dizzy from the effects of the encroaching starvation – consumed anything and everything that was vaguely edible. As they marched they cut through the landscape like a cloud of khaki locusts. Fields and farms next to the roads th
ey marched along became the scenes of vast foraging sweeps as the men desperately searched for anything edible. As Eric Reeves remembered: ‘The only thing that saved me from starvation were the clamps of mangel-wurzels. You’d wait until the guards on their bikes were out of sight then you’d jump in and get as many as you can carry. Then you’d get back in the column and share them out with guys you’d never even seen before. So we ate them raw and unwashed.’ For Fred Coster the experience was one that could never be forgotten: ‘Eating these damn raw potatoes, most of the chaps got diarrhoea. They were dropping out of the column to go to the toilet all the time. It was very debilitating and disgusting. But that was how you had to live – or you’d go under.’

  Gangs surged towards clamps of vegetables stored by the local farmers. Swedes, potatoes and sugar beet were pulled from clamps, the dirt brushed from them, then stuffed hungrily into the mouths of the marching men. It didn’t matter that they needed to be cooked before consumption – few men had any way of cooking them, nor any matches to light a fire. Instead the foul-tasting raw vegetables were chewed and swallowed as enthusiastically as a gourmet meal.