To the last round: After Dunkirk
NAVY NEWS, EVACUATION FROM FRANCE 70th ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENT JULY 2010 i
F
OR a fortnight there had been a disarming quiet along the banks of the Somme and the Aisne. Here had brushed the left flank of the armoured wedge driven across northern France by the panzers as they thrust to the sea. In their wake had come German
infantry, bolstering the flank, in places crossing the two great rivers. And there the Hun had stayed, resolutely, for two weeks now. There had been efforts to dislodge the foe – one General Charles de Gaulle had bludgeoned the bridgehead at Abbeville – but all had failed.
And so the uneasy stand-off
● British and French troops fi le up the steep cliffs at St Valéry-en-Caux after a forlorn mission by the Royal Navy – Operation Cycle – to rescue them
persisted. It persisted until the first streaks of light glimmered on the eastern horizon on Wednesday June 5 1940. Thousands of muzzle flashes glowed briefly in the half-light along a 100-mile stretch of front from the mouth of the Somme to Laon on the Aisne. “It’s a relief for the men,” wrote a soldier in Germany’s 57 Infanterie Division. “After long days in foxholes, after heavy artillery and losses, now we’re advancing. We don’t need tanks, our artillery, anti- tank guns, field guns, machine-guns,
carbines and hand-grenades tear holes in the enemy’s lines.” Thus began the last act of the Battle of France. Within two weeks, the French would be suing for peace. Within three, the guns would be silent. Like the first act, it would demand the sacrifice of friend and foe. It would herald another evacuation from the continent – a ‘forgotten Dunkirk’ – and the worst maritime tragedy in British history.
However much the newspapers of the day trumpeted the homecoming
of the British Expeditionary Force, evacuation at Dunkirk did not bring the curtain down on Britain’s involvement on the continent. There were more than 100,000 Britons still in France after Dunkirk: rear area and supply units, RAF formations, liaison officers and staffs, and not least the fighting men of the 51st Highland Division. In fact, fresh troops were still arriving in France: 52nd Division and the 1st Canadian. In all, there were in excess of 150,000 Commonwealth personnel on the Continent.
They were on the Continent less to thwart the renewed German attack when it came – and it would come – than to bolster the resolve of their faltering ally.
“We’ve gone to war with a 1918 army against a German Army of 1939.” Weygand was exaggerating. But
And the resolve of Britain’s ally was faltering. France had already dismissed her military leader, 68-year- old General Maurice Gamelin, and replaced him with one five years his senior, Maxime Weygand. The new commander hardly exuded confidence.
“This war is sheer madness,” he told a conference of Allied leaders.
the first three weeks of battle had cost the Allies the flower of their armies – 61 divisions had been destroyed, among them half France’s armour. “Three-quarters, if not four-fi fths, of our most modern equipment was captured,” he wrote. “Our units in the north were the best armed. They were our spearhead. The best of the French Army was captured.” What was left would be shown no
mercy by the Germans. Continued on page ii
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