3rd June 1940 – Towards the end

Every day we received many more wounded at the ‘hotel’, the hospital at La Panne; we were kept extremely busy dressing wounds. Outside on the beaches were anti-aircraft guns, and every time they fired the whole building shook. At one time, a terrific barrage shattered the windows; fortunately the glass blew outwards. We had several air raids during the day, and the noise was terrifying.

Troops were continually lifted from the beaches, and at last the rumour spread that we also would be going home. It seemed too good to be true – but the day came when, having evacuated all our casualties, we received orders to move out. We were just packing our gear when Jerry dropped a stick of bombs across the beach, killing and wounding many men. A number were injured around the hotel when the remaining windows blew out, scattering glass. When the noise had died down, two of us set off down the beach in search of wounded.

Having evacuated our latest batch of casualties we finally moved off from the hospital, leaving behind an officer and eight men to look after the remaining wounded who were then moved to the Chateau. We marched off down the beach in single file, and behind us, shells screeched into La Panne; we saw one explode on the rear of the building we had just left.

(Corporal W McWilliam, RAMC, from Robert Jackson’s Dunkirk)

Meanwhile Major Philip Newman returned from his interview with General Alexander to request hospital ships, to the Chateau, the 12th Casualty Clearing Station, where all the remaining wounded were waiting evacuation. He, too, waited for orders.

The first was an invitation to send all the walking-wounded to the mole. Newman and his staff quickly went round the house and grounds, and collected a hundred men who were willing, and just about able, to shuffle along. They were packed into four lorries for transportation to the mole. After a dangerous journey, the men limped down the mole, and were helped on to a destroyer.

‘Then at about 9.45pm,’ wrote Newman, ‘just as the light was failing, we got a message at the Chateau to say a hospital ship was coming in. I called all the men together, and told them there was a slight chance, and that if we worked really hard all night, and got rid of all the wounded, we could get on the boat.’ Five ambulances full of wounded men were driven to the mole. Major Newman tells what happened next:

(Major Philip Newman’s story from Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk)

We waited for an hour, but no hospital boat came. [Major Newman did not yet know that the two hospital ships sent for en clair had been bombed – one sunk, the other put out of action.]

At 11pm I saw the last of the BEF file past. We, with some marines, rushed a few of the stretchers half a mile up the jetty, and put them on a boat. At about 11.30pm the four commanders and brigadiers, and anybody else who was English, left in a pinnace, and there we were, left standing alone, forsaken by England, and only the Germans to look forward to. I can never forget that moment as long as I live. It gave me the greatest feeling of desolation I have ever had.

The rest of the stretchers we begged the French soldiers to take with them on to the boats, which they did with an ill grace. So we did at least do our duty, and got 25 more men to safety. One man on a stretcher, we actually chucked over, as the ship had already left the quay. He landed safely.

We arrived back at the Chateau. The boys had worked very hard to get the convoy ready, and then had given up hope, and simply gone to sleep on the ground in utter despair.

(Major Philip Newman, from Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk. More news of Major Newman tomorrow, 4th June)

The last lifting was severely hampered by fog and smoke and besides the old known and charted wrecks in the approaches, there were now at least twelve new uncharted ones, and more wrecks in the harbour. HMS Express and HMS Shikari were the last ships to leave on 3rd June. The enemy tried to bomb Shikari; luckily the haze made their aim poor. These two ships carried between them about one thousand soldiers and the British pier parties. The only troops now remaining in Dunquerque were some non-combatants of the garrison and the few units still holding the fortress for the French.

(John Masefield, Nine Days Wonder. More on the last to be rescued tomorrow, June 4th)

The first thing I’d pay tribute to is the men and the morale that we had in the battalion, which was absolutely wonderful. It was the most thrilling feeling to experience the spirit of the chaps who were with you. We had tremendous respect for the courage of our men and the way they held out when the Dunkirk withdrawal was going on. They never got to Dunkirk themselves. They were stopping the Germans interfering by land with the withdrawal of thousands and thousands of other people – which they did successfully. The battalion was practically wiped out doing it.

(Captain Francis Barclay, 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment, from Max Arthur’s Forgotten Voices. More news of the rearguard tomorrow, 4th June)

Stream wash away by Liz Mathews, poem by Kathleen Raine
An improvised grave or way marker made from Thames driftwood

Ambulance driver Lillian Gutteridge was making her way to Dunkirk with an ambulance full of wounded patients. A German SS officer commandeered the ambulance and ordered her to abandon the stretcher-cases. She slapped his face, whereupon the SS officer stabbed her in the thigh, but the timely appearance of a troop of Black Watch soldiers saved her. Lillian Gutteridge then drove her ambulance to the railway, despite her wound, and managed to get her patients onto the Cherbourg train (which picked up another 600 wounded troops en route) and from Cherbourg eventually reached England.

(Story from Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Corps History by Julia Piggott on the QARANC History website.

Is Harry [West, whom we last saw yesterday with his looted watches] the real animal behind the brave, laughing heroic boy panoply which the BBC spread before us nightly? – a natural human being, not made for shooting men, but for planting potatoes. I gather he’d shoot himself rather than go to France again. So it was at Waterloo, I suppose.

(Virginia Woolf’s diary. Harry West in fact rejoined his regiment and fought with it overseas until the end of the war.)

Suddenly Brigadier Beckwith-Smith drove up in his car. ‘Marvellous news, Jimmy,’ he shouted. ‘The best ever! It is splendid. We have been given the supreme honour of being the rearguard at Dunkirk. Tell your platoon, Jimmy, come on, tell them the good news.’

After all the months together, I knew 15 Platoon very well, and had not the slightest doubt that they would accept this information with their usual tolerance and good humour. However I did not think they would class it as ‘marvellous’ and ‘the best ever’.

‘I think it had better come from you sir.’

‘Right,’ he replied, and after telling them to remain seated, made known to them the change of plan.

(2nd Lt Jimmy Langley of the 2nd Coldstream Guards, from Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk. Jimmy Langley was wounded and taken to the Chateau, where his arm was amputated by surgeon Major Philip Newman. He survived to become a P.o.W. and was repatriated to England in 1941, where he became one of the leading lights of MI9, helping prisoners of war escape and travel home.)

I hoped and believed that last night would see us through, but the French, who were covering the retirement of the British rearguard, had to repel a strong German attack, and so were unable to send their troops to the pier in time to be embarked. We cannot leave our allies in the lurch, and I must call on all officers and men detailed for further evacuation tonight, and let the world see that we never let down an ally.

(Vice Admiral Ramsay’s directions, issued at 10am on 3rd June, from Hugh Segbag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk)

There were in fact still many men to be rescued; it is probable that there were at least 30,000 men still in the area, and it was essential that a tremendous effort should be made to lift the last of them. Ammunition was by now quite exhausted, and any question of holding even a bridge-head in the town itself was hopeless.

Princess Maud and Royal Sovereign were the last of the passenger ships to leave Dunkirk. HMS Shakari, Sun IV, Sun XV and Tanga went in to the Mole at the same time on Monday 3rd June. This was almost the very last of the loading – the last desperate effort. Already, in addition to the bombing and the shelling, machine-gun fire from the Germans in the streets of the town was beginning.

HMM Medway Queen made her last passage. She had established the mine-sweepers’ record of seven trips, a magnificent performance. She went alongside the Mole again, and very shortly after she had made fast a shell-burst threw a destroyer against her stern lines, cutting them. Both ships swung out and Medway Queen lost her brow. Men who were at the moment coming down it managed to fling themselves aboard as it fell. Almost immediately afterwards she was in trouble again, being rammed by a cross-channel steamer. She picked up 367 French troops among others on this trip, considerably incapacitated by various troubles.

At 3.30 HMS Shakari was still lying alongside the quay. Only the wreckage of Dunkirk and its flames lay between the advancing Germans and the Mole.  The men that were left were weaponless and defenceless. At 3.40am, with the German machine-guns stuttering in the nearer streets, having taken every man she could get on board, the destroyer pulled out.  To Shakari, one of the oldest of the destroyers in service in the Royal Navy (she was built in 1919) fell the honour of being the last ship to leave Dunkirk.

(from AD Divine’s Dunkirk)

Clipping from a London newspaper preserved by one of the soldiers shown; Alec J. Harrison, second from left, was among the last soldiers to be evacuated from Dunkirk, and lived until his 80’s. This clipping was contributed to The Dunkirk Project by his cousin’s daughter, Linda Rowley, and more of Alec Harrison’s story can be found in the comments at the end of today’s page.

Ages passed. We began to give up hope of a boat. Suddenly out of the blackness, rather ghostly, swam a white shape which materialised into a ship’s lifeboat, towed by a motor-boat. It moved towards us and came to a stop twenty yards in front of the head of the queue we all hailed, dreading they hadn’t seen us. But they risked a few more yards. So fearful was I that the boat might move off and leave us that I struggled to the head of the queue and waded forward crying: ‘Come on the 2004th!’

Higher rose the water every step we took. Soon it reached my arm-pits, and was lapping the chins of the shorter men. The blind urge to safety drove us on whether we could swim or not. Our feet just maintained contact with the bottom by the time we reached the side of the boat.

Four sailors in tin-hats began hoisting the soldiers out of the water. It was no simple task. Half the men were so weary and exhausted that they lacked strength to climb into the boat unaided. The gunwale stood three feet above the surface of the water. Reaching up I could just grasp it with the tips of my fingers. When I tried to haul myself up I couldn’t move an inch. A great dread of being left behind seized me.

Two powerful hands reached over the gunwale and fastened themselves into my arm-pits. Another pair of hands stretched down and hooked-on to the belt at the back of my great-coat. Before I had time to realise it I was pulled up and pitched head-first into the bottom of the boat.

The boat was now getting crowded. The moment came when the lifeboat could not hold another soul. And we got under weigh, leaving the rest of the queue behind to await the next boat. There and then on that dark and sinister sea, an indescribable sense of luxurious contentment enveloped me. The grey flank of H.M.M. Medway Queen, paddle steamer, loomed in front of us, her shadowy decks already packed with troops from the beaches. In a minute or two our boatload was submerged in the crowd. Irresistible drowsiness seized us…

It was a beautiful sunny June morning. Not a speck of cloud in the blue sky. And there in the pearly light that a slight haze created we saw the finest sight in the world.

“Ramsgate!” I exclaimed.

“England,” murmured the A.C.P.O.

(from Return via Dunkirk by Gun Buster, ending his best-selling account of the heroic rearguard action of Y Battery, 2004th Field Regiment R.A., ‘the last battery in the B.E.F. to come out of action’. Gun Buster and his colleagues were brought back on HMM Medway Queen, the first in our series of Heroic ships. Gun Buster is the pen-name of Dick Austin – Capt. R.A. Austin of 368 Battery, 92nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery, whose colleague in arms ‘Boyd’ is Capt. B.G. Bonallack, soldier-poet whose story runs through Thames to Dunkirk. More on BG Bonallack here.)

The endpapers of BG Bonallack’s copy of Return via Dunkirk with the key to the book’s characters on the left, and on the right signed by the author and colleagues. I was shown this treasured memento by Basil Bonallack’s son Tim Bonallack, and I’m very grateful to his family for this and other generous permissions.

Page 22 of the Working Model for Thames to Dunkirk, the last page to show the soldiers, with the names of the signatories lettered on the beach, and the Medway Queen among the little ships ferrying the soldiers out to the waiting ships.

The last ships carrying BEF soldiers left Dunkirk shortly before 11pm. The total number of soldiers evacuated was 288,000 (including some 193,000 BEF troops), a miraculous figure compared with the 45,000 the Admiralty had originally mentioned to Vice-Admiral Ramsay. General Alexander and Captain Tennant who had overseen the evacuation then toured the beaches and the harbour in a motor boat, calling for any British soldiers to show themselves. None did, and at 11.30pm Tennant sent the following signal to Dover, which at the beginning of Operation Dynamo he had never imagined would be appropriate: ‘BEF evacuated.‘

(Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk)

Lucky Weather

Mere English, this Armada thing again

(the genius for last-minute muddle through,

the lucky weather)

Sunday sailors

who messed about in boats

now take their baptism of fire.

Heroes – how not – courage beyond, of course.

An island race, etc.

The sea shall have them.

For those in peril – the sea, the sea

never dealt death like this.

Compassless little ships to ferry home

every man England expects will do

not question why.

(Frances Bingham)

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Tomorrow, 4th June 1940 – Beyond Dunkirk

29th May 1940 – Nightmare

Lucky Weather
Paperwork by Liz Mathews, setting poem by Frances Bingham

29th May was a nightmare for the Royal and Merchant Navies, as ship after ship was sunk or put out of action. Lt Commander Rodolph Haig, in charge of the minesweeper HMS Lydd, one of four ships most involved in the tragic events near Kwinte Whistle Buoy reported:

‘Flares were sighted, and shouting heard close at hand. The light from an Aldis lamp revealed the bow and stern portions of HMS Wakeful appearing above water with men clinging to them. I immediately lowered a whaler and two carley floats. Shortly after this, HMS Gossamer, which was close by, ordered us to put my light out and drop a depth charge. I could not at once comply with the latter order as I was too close to the wreck, and would have killed the men in the water. I kept the ship moving while the whaler and carley floats were picking up survivors, and had just got 20 alongside when HMS Grafton appeared. I asked her if she would pick up the rest, and she asked us to circle round her in case of enemy submarines.’

Shortly afterwards, the Grafton was hit by a torpedo and then another explosion on her bridge killed her Commander Cecil Robinson. In the confusion, Comfort, a British drifter coming to the rescue was also hit; all of Comfort‘s crew and the survivors she had rescued from Wakeful were killed, though most of Grafton‘s crew and the troops on board were saved.

(Story from Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk)

We were fortunate – so fortunate. We have said thank you to England a thousand times for sending the little boats to take us to the big boats – the destroyers – to take us back to England. I was on the beach for two days, and it was so horrible. We seemed to be walking on dead bodies, not on sand. It is very hard to describe, just walking on bodies. At ten o’clock in the evening, we reached a little boat, which should usually take about six people, but there must have been twenty people already on it. We were very fortunate that the boat took us to an English destroyer. I shall never forget the captain, who was one of the nicest gentlemen you could wish to meet. He said, ‘Come on, Frogs, sit down and have something to eat.’ It was a good joke at that moment! He told us, ‘Eat whatever you want,’ and we sat down to eat – and it was better than any meal at the Savoy today – bacon, cheese, everything. It was a joy for us.

(Leon Wilson, French soldier retreating from Belgium into France, from Max Arthur’s Forgotten Voices)

The famous London fire-boat, the Massey Shaw, went with a fire service crew, brought off sixty men and carried them to England. Later with a naval crew, she tendered-off some hundreds, then carried home forty-six and returned to the beach for more.

(John Masefield, The Nine Days Wonder.)

From about a mile away, still no aeroplanes, no bombs, no menace, though I could see a wrecked small craft, and then a bigger craft. Gradually we could see dark shapes against the sand – and then we saw that there were hundreds – thousands – of people on this sand, and stretching up to the line of houses which stood, presumably, on the road that ran along the coast. Mainly we noticed that they were columns of men stretching down into the sea. We didn’t really understand what this was at first – and then it suddenly occurred to us that these were columns of men waiting to be picked up. The first man in the sea was the next man to be picked up.

One of our auxiliaries, Shiner Wright, was a good swimmer, and he went from the Massey Shaw to a wrecked boat which was right inshore and tied a rope to the wreck so that we had a fixed line into the shallow water. They got a rowing boat that would hold very few people, and worked it along the line, pulling hand over hand. When we got organised this worked very well. In that way I think we took aboard 36 soldiers out of the water that night.

(Francis Codd, Auxiliary Fire Service in London, aboard the Massey Shaw, a shallow-draft fire-fighting ship based on the Thames, approaching the beach at Bray Dunes, a few miles east of Dunkirk. Francis Codd’s moving account can be heard in full in the Imperial War Museum.)

Dunkirk Phossil 69 by Charlie Bonallack. Image interpreted from source from IWM archive, hand-painted with pigment on porcelain. For more, see Dunkirk Phossils by Charlie Bonallack.

Six Leigh cockle boats that had never been further than Ramsgate – Defender, Letitia, Renown, Endeavour, Reliance and Resolute –  brought home a total of 1000 soldiers – but they didn’t all come back;  His Majesty’s yacht Gay Venture went flying the white ensign; the Elvin, an Estuary cruiser was refused for ‘civilian crew, ship too slow’, and went anyway, flying the red ensign. You can still take a trip on the Princess Freda, a Thames passenger vessel that still operates from Westminster Pier to Kew; and the Waverley, an 1899 paddle-steamer was lost on 29th May when returning with troops from Dunkirk – her replacement, built in 1946 is now the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer, and bears a brass plaque honouring her original.

The Medway Queen, another paddle steamer requisitioned for service as a minesweeper, achieved the record of seven trips and rescued an extraordinary 7000 men; stories from the Medway Queen are running throughout the nine days, and she’s the first in our new series focusing on the heroic ships of Dunkirk.

(Ships’ stories from several sources including the website of the Association of Little Ships of Dunkirk. More little ships’ stories throughout the nine days)

My husband, who was in the Guards, was in the retreat, and he was picked up by a yacht with a lot of other Welsh guardsmen and brought back to England. They left every single thing they possessed except their guns – even their sleeping bags, their clothes, their equipment. They just got on board any ship that was able to take them back to England. At the time, knowing the French had given up the fight, and that the Germans were all along the coast of France, we really did think that any day they would be invading.

(Lady Anne Chichester, civilian worker in Hampshire, from Max Arthur’s Forgotten Voices)

Captain Strother Smith and his men had finally reached the vast queue on the beach: ‘The sea was almost as horrible a sight as the town. On we trudged in single file until we were on the boat.’ They were taken on board a converted passenger boat, had a bath and slept in a bed in a cabin – they were on the boat for about 12 hours from 4pm on Tuesday 28th. At 5.30am on Wednesday 29th, ‘we were landed and the nightmare was over.’ Captain Strother Smith was taken to a hospital at Aldershot suffering from complete exhaustion.

(From Captain NC Strother Smith’s account in the Imperial War Museum archive)

On the night of 29th/30th May we left Flêtre and then started our forty-mile trek to Dunkirk. We walked and ran throughout that night, and indeed, all the next day. One was continually making diversions to miss the enemy. I remember, there was a Captain Whitty, who had been shot through the chest – an amazingly brave man. He was leading quite a sizeable group of infantry, and for a while we tagged on. It was a case of every man for himself. It was chaotic. The Germans were very close, and people were being killed. At 21 years old, one hadn’t experienced death and people being killed. So it was a bit frightening.

(Sergeant Leonard Howard, 210 Field Company, Royal Engineers, from Max Arthur’s Forgotten Voices. More from Leonard Howard tomorrow, May 30th)

Squadron Leader Al Deere, whom we left yesterday somewhere north-east of Dunkirk, his plane shot down on the sand-flats, being patched up with a needle and thread by an unnamed woman, sized up the situation and headed south-west for Dunkirk, where he knew the BEF was ‘retreating according to plan’:

“Somewhere en route to Dunkirk, I went into a small cafe where I saw two tommies. I asked, ‘Am I heading for the Army at Dunkirk?’

They looked at me and said, ‘What British Army? There’s no retreat, chum. There’s bloody chaos.’

Dunkirk was a complete shambles – burning buildings, abandoned vehicles and falling masonry.”

(Squadron Leader Al Deere, 54 Squadron RAF, from Max Arthur’s Forgotten Voices)

On the 29th May, again for Dunkirk, proceeded to the pier and took off 750 troops. There was intensive bombing all the time, and on our return we were shelled heavily by the battery.

(Captain G Johnson aboard the Royal Daffodil, from his account in the IWM archive. More from the Royal Daffodil every day until 2nd June)

During the afternoon of 29th May the Luftwaffe targeted ten British ships which were tied up alongside Dunkirk’s mole. Between 3.30pm and 6pm, three air raids put seven of these ships out of action, including HMS Grenade, which sank blocking the harbour entrance.

(Story from Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Dunkirk)

My first day at a temporary hospital in Leatherhead set up to cope with the rush of wounded from Dunkirk, was the most terrible experience. The retreat was in full swing and all sorts of patients were arriving who needed operations. Because the place had never been used as a hospital before the confusion was immense. People were saying: ‘Nurse, take this man to operating theatre number five on the trolley,’ or ‘Quick, get a blanket for this chap!’ and one had no idea where the blankets were kept or where the theatres were. Because of the black out one had to nurse at night holding a tiny torch – which meant that you had to go and check with your torch to see if anyone had died, there were so many serious cases.

(Ann Darlington, from Anne de Courcy’s Debs at War)

The wind had changed on the 29th. There was still through most of the day a surf running on the beaches, but now the smoke was coming off the town and from the burning oil tanks, and it was at times impossible to see the roadstead from the harbour. Finding the harbour entrance was a matter of great difficulty at various periods throughout the day, and over the beaches there hung a choking cloud. Nonetheless 38,000 men were lifted during the twenty-four hours. It was an incredible achievement – the fruit of courage, of endurance and of sheer brutal toil that is almost without parallel in history. The nightmares of the night seemed somehow to have extended themselves into the daylight hours.

(from Dunkirk by AD Divine, who witnessed the nightmare from the deck of White Wing. More from him throughout, including his view of Captain G Johnson’s Royal Daffodil on 2nd June 1940 – Tatter’d colours)

We sailed to Dunkirk six times altogether on the hospital ship St Julien but were only able to load stretcher cases twice as it was often impossible to get near either mole. We all felt helpless and desperately depressed on the empty trips back.

(Nurse Jo Kenny, from the BBC archive of WW2 People’s War Stories, on:

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/

Another flock of bombers now appeared on their way to hammer the ruins of Dunkirk to a still greater degree of devastation. It was seven o’clock. The great pall of smoke spread wide a hundred feet over the town like Death’s hovering wing. It was a very forbidding spectacle. Looked at as a refuge, a sanctuary, a gate of escape, it was anything but inviting. We seemed to be heading straight for a holocaust; far worse than anything we had witnessed so far, the last ordeal. It was a picture that reduced one to silence.

(Gun Buster, from Retreat via Dunkirk, still en route for Dunkirk. More about Y Battery’s rearguard action tomorrow, 30th May)

from  Survivors

With the ship burning in their eyes

The white faces float like refuse

In the darkness – the water screwing

Oily circles where the hot steel lies.

They clutch with fingers frozen into claws

The lifebelts thrown from a destroyer,

And see, between the future’s doors,

the gasping entrance of the sea.

Taken on board as many as lived, who

Had a mind left for living and the ocean,

They open eyes running with surf,

Heavy with with grey ghosts of explosion.

Later, sleepless at night, the brain spinning

With cracked images, they won’t forget

The confusion and the oily dead,

Nor yet the casual knack of living.

(Alan Ross, from The Hundred Years’ War ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe 2014)

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Tomorrow, 30th May 1940 – The view from the air