Farley and several others from the 1st/7th Middlesex broke into a large corner shop, and once inside were thankful to find stairs leading down to a basement. Here they crouched in comparative safety as the shelling swept methodically up and down the streets salvo after salvo, turning the town into a dust-choked ruin. Flames began to lick through upper windows as fires took hold.
It was important not to go entirely underground. There was always the danger of missing some important order. The men took turns keeping watch at the door—very unpleasant duty with the town collapsing around them. Farley found the knack was to leap back to the stairs whenever a salvo seemed likely to be close. He got very good at it.
After an hour and a half, Captain Johnson of Headquarters Company slipped in with the latest orders: listen for some whistle blasts as soon as there is a lull in the shelling … then clear out and run for the beach at the double … turn left at the bandstand and keep going for half a mile. That would be where the battalion would reassemble and embark.
No one was to stop for anything. Casualties to be left where they fell. The medical orderlies would take care of these. The essential thing was to clear the streets without delay at the first feasible moment.
Just before 2:45 a.m. Private Farley heard the whistle loud and clear. His group raced up the cellar steps and out into the street. Other units were pouring out of other buildings, too. Jumbled together, they all surged toward the beachfront. The flames from the burning buildings lit their way; the crash of bursting shells spurred them on. The “lull,” it turned out, meant only a shift in targets. But the most unforgettable sound—a din that drowned out even the gunfire—was the steady crunch of thousands of boots on millions of fragments of broken glass.
Soon they were by the bandstand … across the esplanade … onto the beach—and suddenly they were in a different world. Gone was the harsh, grating clatter; now there was only the squish of feet running on wet sand. The glare of the fire-lit streets gave way to the blackness of the dunes at night. The smoke and choking dust vanished, replaced by the clean, damp air of the seaside … the smell of salt and seaweed.
Then the shelling shifted again, aimed this time right at the beach where the men were running. Private Farley of the Middlesex saw a flash, felt the blast, but (oddly enough) heard no “bang” as a close one landed just ahead. He was untouched, but the four men running with him all went down. Three lay motionless on the sand; the fourth, propped up on one hand, pleaded, “Help me, help me.”
Farley ran on. After all, those were the orders. But he knew in his heart that the real reason he didn’t stop was self-preservation. The memory of that voice pleading for help would still haunt his conscience forty years later.
Half a mile down the beach was the point where the Middlesex had been ordered to reassemble for embarkation. Private Parley had imagined what it would be like. He pictured a well-organized area where senior NCO’s would stand at the head of gangway ladders taking name, rank, and serial number as the troops filed aboard the waiting ships. Actually, there was no embarkation staff, no waiting ships, no organization whatsoever.
Nobody seemed to be in charge. The 2nd Royal Ulster Rifles had been told that reception camps would be waiting for them when they got to the beach, that a Division Control Staff would take over from there and guide them to the ships. They found no trace of either the camps or the Control Staff, and of course no sign of the ships.
The 1st Grenadier Guards reached the beach intact, but with no further orders, the battalion soon broke up. Some men headed for Dunkirk; others joined the columns hopefully waiting at the water’s edge; Sergeant Bridges led a small group of six or eight into the dunes to wait for dawn. Maybe daylight would show them what to do.
But would they last that long? At one point Bridges heard an ominous rumble coming toward them. It sounded like the whole German Army, and he crouched in the sand, awaiting that final confrontation. It turned out to be only horses, abandoned by some French artillery unit, galloping aimlessly up and down the sand.
But the next big noise might always be the enemy, and still there was no sign of any ships. To Lieutenant-Commander J. N. McClelland, the senior naval officer remaining at La Panne, the situation was turning into a hideous exercise in arithmetic. It was now 1:00 a.m.; the British couldn’t expect to hold La Panne beyond dawn at 4:00. Some 6,000 troops were pouring onto the beach; they had lifted off only 150 since nightfall. At this rate, nearly the whole force would be lost.
He conferred briefly with Major-General G. D. Johnson, the senior army officer on the beach at this point. Yes, McClelland assured the General, he had made a personal reconnaissance both above and below the position. No, there weren’t any ships. Yes, they were meant to be there. No, he didn’t think they would come now—something must have gone wrong. To McClelland the Royal Navy’s absence was almost a matter of personal shame. He formally apologized to Johnson for the nonarrival of the boats.
They decided that the only course left was to march the bulk of the troops down the beach toward Dunkirk and try to embark from there. Or perhaps they would run across some ships at Bray-Dunes along the way.
A few men—mostly wounded and exhausted stragglers—were not fit to march. These would be left behind, and McClelland headed down to the lorry jetties to look after them, on the chance that some ships might still turn up.
More German guns were ranged on the beach now, and McClelland was twice knocked down by shell bursts. One smashed his signal lamp; the second wounded his left ankle. As often happens, it didn’t hurt much at first—just a numb feeling—and he hobbled on down the beach.
At the embarkation point it was the same old story: no boats for over half an hour. McClelland now ordered the remaining troops to join the trek to Dunkirk. Even if they couldn’t keep up with the main body, they must try. He himself rounded up all the stragglers he could find and sent them on their way. Then he limped off after the rest.
About two miles toward Bray-Dunes he suddenly saw what he had been searching for all night—ships! Three vessels lay at anchor not far from the shore. A small party of soldiers stood at the water’s edge firing shots, trying to attract attention. There was no response from the ships. They just sat there, dark and silent.
McClelland looked farther down the beach. The night was filled with explosions, and in the flashes he could make out swarms of troops, but no trace of any other boat. These three anchored ships were the only chance. Somehow they must be told that the troops were moving steadily westward toward Dunkirk. Once these ships knew, they could alert the others, and the rescue fleet could finally assemble at the right place.
He plunged into the sea and began swimming. He was dead tired; his ankle began acting up; but he kept on. As he thrashed alongside the nearest ship, somebody threw him a line and he was hauled aboard. She turned out to be HMS Gossamer, one of Ramsay’s hard-working minesweepers. Taken before the captain, Commander Richard Ross, McClelland managed to pant out his message: La Panne abandoned; all shipping should concentrate much farther west. Then he collapsed.
For Commander Ross, it was the first piece of solid intelligence to come his way since leaving Dover at 6:00 p.m. The Gossamer was one of the group of vessels earmarked for lifting the rear guard at the eastern end of the perimeter, amounting to some 4,000 men. The plan called for three big batches of ships’ lifeboats to be towed by tugs across the Channel and stationed at three carefully designated points off La Panne. The rear guard would be instructed where to go, and at 1:30 a.m. the lifeboats would start ferrying the men to minesweepers waiting at each of the three points. Escorting destroyers would provide covering fire if the enemy tried to interfere. (“All tanks hostile,” the orders reminded the destroyers.) The final directives were issued at 4:00 a.m., May 31, and the “special tows,” as Ramsay called them, began leaving Ramsgate at 1:00 p.m.
Every possible contingency had been covered—except the fortunes of war. German pressure on the perimeter was too great. The covering
position could no longer be held by the 4,000-man rear guard. Under heavy enemy shelling the troops were pulling back sooner than expected, and farther west than planned. The special tows must be alerted to go to a different place at a different time.
But Dover no longer had any direct communication with the special tows. Ramsay could only radio the accompanying minesweepers, hoping that the change in plans would be passed along to the tugs and their tows. He did this, but predictably his message never got through.
The armada chugged on to the originally designated spots, but now, of course, there was no one there. With no further directions, they groped along the coast, hoping somehow to make contact. Gossamer had, in fact, just stumbled on a sizable contingent when McClelland swam out, gasping his advice to look farther west.
The alert radio interception unit at General Georg von Kuechler’s Eighteenth Army headquarters knew more than the BEF about the special tows and where they could be found. At 7:55 p.m. on the 31st, Captain Essmann of Headquarters phoned XXVI and IX Corps command posts, giving the latest information along with some instructions on what should be done.
Beginning at twilight, a heavy harassing fire was to be concentrated on the approach roads leading to the supposed embarkation points. … Armored reconnaissance patrols were to check whether the enemy had managed to evacuate. … If so, an immediate thrust was to be made to the coast.
Not exactly an inspiring blueprint for an army closing in for the kill. A lackadaisical mood, in fact, seemed to permeate most German military thinking these past two days. To Colonel Rolf Wuthmann, Operations Officer of General von Kluge’s Fourth Army at the western end of the perimeter, it was a cause for alarm. “There is an impression here that nothing is happening today, that no one is any longer interested in Dunkirk,” he complained to General von Kleist’s Chief of Staff on May 30.
Quite true. All eyes were now on the south. “Fall Rot”—Operation “Red”—the great campaign designed to knock France out of the war, would jump off from the Somme in just six days. Its immense scope and dazzling possibilities easily diverted attention from Dunkirk. Guderian and the other panzer generals—once so exasperated by Hitler’s halt order—now wanted only to pull out their tanks, rest their men, prepare for the great new adventure. Rundstedt, commanding Army Group A, had already shifted his entire attention to the Somme. On the 31st Bock, commanding Army Group B, received a fat bundle of papers from OKH regrouping his forces too. At OKH, General Haider, the Chief of Staff, spent most of the day far behind the lines, checking communications, the flow of supplies, the status of Army Group C—all for the great new offensive.
As for Dunkirk, it was hard to escape the feeling that it was really all over. Some ten German infantry divisions now pressed a few thousand disorganized Allied soldiers against the sea. Kluge’s Chief of Staff Kurt Brennecke might scold, “We do not want to find these men, freshly equipped, in front of us again later,” but no German command was more thoroughly preoccupied with the coming drive south than Brennecke’s own Fourth Army. General Haider might complain, “Now we must stand by and watch countless thousands of the enemy get away to England right under our noses,” but he didn’t stand by and watch very much himself. He too was busy getting ready for the big new push.
It always seemed that one more try would finish up Dunkirk, but no one was quite in the position to do it. With the closing of the trap, there were too many overlapping commands and too little coordination. Finally, in an effort to centralize responsibility, General von Kuechler’s Eighteenth Army was put in complete charge. On May 31, at 2:00 a.m., all the various divisions along the entire 35-mile length of the perimeter passed under his control.
It wasn’t long before Kuechler was getting advice. The following evening General Mieth of OKH telephoned a few “personal suggestions” from the highest levels. General von Brauchitsch suggested the landing of troop units from the sea in the rear of the British forces … also, the withdrawal of German units from the Ganal Line so as to open up opportunities for the Luftwaffe without endangering friendly troops. And finally, an idea from Adolf Hitler himself: Kuechler might consider the possibility of using antiaircraft shells with time fuses to compensate for the reduced effectiveness of ordinary artillery fire on the beaches, where the sand tended to smother the explosions. Like many shakers and movers of the earth, the Fuehrer occasionally liked to tinker.
For the moment, these intriguing ideas were put aside. Kuechler had already made his plan, and it called for nothing as offbeat as a landing behind the British forces, even if that were possible. Instead, he simply planned an attack by all his forces at once along the entire length of the perimeter on June 1.
First, his artillery would soften the enemy up with harassing fire, starting immediately and continuing the whole night. The attacking troops would jump off at 11:00 a.m., June 1, closely supported by General Alfred Keller’s Fliegerkorps IV.
Everything was to be saved for the main blow. During the afternoon of the 31st, Eighteenth Army issued a special directive warning the troops not to engage in any unnecessary action that day. Rather, their time should be spent moving the artillery into position, gathering intelligence, conducting reconnaissance, and making other preparations for the “systematic attack” tomorrow.
All very sound, but this inflexibility also suggests why so little use was made of the radio intercept about Ramsay’s special tows. It clearly indicated that the British were abandoning the eastern end of the perimeter this very night—leaving themselves wide open in the process—yet the German plans were frozen, and nothing was done.
If anybody at Eighteenth Army headquarters sensed a lost opportunity on the evening of May 31, there’s no evidence of it. Preparations went steadily ahead for the unified attack tomorrow. The artillery pumped out shells at a rate the British Tommies would never forget, and the Luftwaffe joined in the softening-up process.
Special emphasis had been placed on the Luftwaffe’s role, and for the duration of the attack Eighteenth Army was virtually given control of its operations. General Kesselring’s Air Fleet 2 was simply told to attack Dunkirk continuously until the Eighteenth told it to stop.
Making use of his authority, around noon on the 31st Kuechler requested special strikes every fifteen minutes on the dunes west of Nieuport, where the British artillery was giving his 256th Infantry Division a hard time. Kesselring promised to follow through, but later reported that ground fog was keeping some of the planes from taking off.
Bad weather was a familiar story. It had scrubbed almost all missions on the 30th, and curbed operations on the 31st. It was, then, good news indeed when June 1 turned out to be bright and clear.
12
“I Have Never Prayed So Hard Before”
AS THE GROWL OF approaching planes grew louder, veteran Seaman Bill Barris carefully removed his false teeth and put them in his handkerchief pocket—always a sure sign to the men on the destroyer Windsor that hard fighting lay ahead. It was 5:30 a.m., June 1, and the early morning mist was already burning off, promising a hot sunny day.
In seconds the planes were in sight, Me 109’s sweeping in low from the east. Gun muzzles twinkling, some strafed the eastern mole, where the Windsor lay loading; others hit the beaches … the rescue fleet … even individual soldiers wading and swimming out to the ships. Normally the German fighters did little strafing. Their orders were to remain “upstairs,” flying cover for the Stukas and Heinkels. Today’s tactics suggested something special.
Tucked away in the dunes west of La Panne, Sergeant John Bridges of the 1st Grenadier Guards safely weathered the storm. Around him clustered six to eight other Grenadier Guards, the little group he had formed when the battalion dissolved during the night. At that time nobody knew what to do, and it seemed best to wait till dawn.
Now it was getting light, and the choice was no easier. Joining the trek to Dunkirk looked too dangerous. Bridges could see nothing but gun flashes and towering smoke in that direction. On the other ha
nd, joining one of the columns waiting on the beach below looked futile. There were so few boats and so many men. In the end, Bridges opted for the beach; perhaps the group could find some shorter queue where the wait would be reasonable.
A pistol shot ended that experiment. An officer accused the group of queue-jumping and fired a warning blast in the general direction of Bridges’s feet. Undaunted, the Sergeant turned his mind to the possibility of getting off the beach without queueing up at all. Noticing an apparently empty lifeboat drifting about 100 yards offshore, he suggested they swim out and get it. Nobody could swim.
He decided to go and bring it back himself. Stripping off his clothes, he swam out to the boat, only to find it was not empty after all. Two bedraggled figures in khaki were already in it, trying to unlash the oars. They were glad to have Bridges join them, but not his friends. They weren’t about to return to shore for anybody. Bridges hopped out and swam back to the beach.
But now the group had vanished, scattered by an air raid. Only Corporal Martin was left, faithfully guarding Bridges’s gear. Looking to sea, they saw yet another lifeboat and decided to make for that. Martin, of course, couldn’t swim, but Bridges—ever an optimist—felt that somehow he could push and pull the Corporal along.
It would have been easier if Bridges had been traveling light. But he was dressed again, carrying his pack and gas cape, and there was much on his mind besides Corporal Martin. While in Furnes, their unit had been stationed in a cellar under a jewelry and fur shop. There was much talk about not leaving anything for the Germans to loot, and first thing Bridges knew, he had turned looter himself. Now his pack and gas cape were filled with wristwatches, bracelets, and a twelve-pelt silver fox cape.
The two men waded into the sea, Bridges trying to help Martin and hang onto his riches at the same time. Somehow they reached the lifeboat, which turned out to be in the charge of a white-haired, fatherly-looking brigadier, still wearing all his ribbons and red trim. He was skillfully maneuvering the boat about, picking up strays here and there. Martin was hauled aboard, and Bridges prepared to follow.