CHAPTER NINE
It was after ‘stand to’ at dawn on the morning of 24 May when Major Windsor-Lewis sent a messenger to search for the rest of his battalion. The messenger was the fourth that Windsor-Lewis had sent out since the time he had first withdrawn into Boulogne from his positions near the Mont Lambert crossroads. The first three messengers had not returned, Windsor-Lewis assuming they had been retained at Battalion HQ due to the heavy firing in the town. Now, the small band of 3 Company under their charismatic CO – the only officer in the company left to command a body of men after the fighting on the morning of 23 May – anxiously awaited news of their battalion.
They had spent an uncomfortable night at their road blocks. Shortly after dusk the previous evening, at roughly the same time the bulk of 2 Welsh Guards had sailed for home, two German panzers with infantry creeping behind had approached Windsor-Lewis’s position and had been driven off. Shortly afterwards his men had been machine-gunned from houses opposite and two houses on his left flank had burst into flames. It was not until after midnight that the firing had died down and his exhausted men had been able to get some fitful rest until time came for them to ‘stand to’ just before dawn.
A road block on a street behind the Boulevard Gambetta. Courtesy RHQ Irish Guards
Unlike the first three messengers, the fourth returned with the shocking news that the battalion ‘had gone.’ Windsor-Lewis decided to move to the quayside as quickly as possible with the men he had left. In spite of the heavy presence of German tanks and half-tracks in and around the harbour area the previous evening, the party were not troubled during their short march to the quay which required them to pick their way over the partially demolished bridge towards the area of the Gare Maritime where a scene of chaos greeted them.
The German caption for this photograph, taken at a British road block, reads ‘At the harbour of Boulogne the enemy is still resisting’. With the fighting still going on a German soldier peers warily around the corner. Bundesarchiv Koblenz
‘On arrival at quayside with the remnant of my company I found the utmost confusion in progress. There were stragglers from No. 2 and 4 Companies, 2WG., some Irish Guards, about 150 refugees, 120 French soldiers with 2 officers, 200 of the AMP’s, 120 men of RE and others. I collected this force in the sheds by the station while I, with a Major EGM Burt of the RE…went off to find the minesweeper which had just come into the harbour and ask if it would evacuate us to England.’ Major J C Windsor-Lewis, OC 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.1
Windsor-Lewis crossed the damaged bridge to speak to the senior French officer aboard the minesweeper who declined to evacuate the quay but said that when he put to sea once more he would signal to any boat or warship he saw to go to their rescue. A staff officer on the quay had already told Windsor-Lewis that whilst the brigade had been evacuated, boats were supposed to be returning for the men left behind. Windsor-Lewis then tried to re-cross the bridge and came under heavy machine gun fire from houses close to the harbour. Dodging behind abandoned cars and the litter of equipment he managed to get back to his men unscathed.
Syd Pritchard and his pal, Guardsman Bert Jeffers, who had taken part in the aborted attempt to break out of Boulogne the night before, had also decided to make their way to the harbour early that morning.
‘Friday morning we made our way to the harbour across the big bridge and we caught up with Windsor-Lewis. We fought Friday morning until 2 o’clock on Saturday 25 May, non-stop. We were in a coal cellar. “Jeff” and I used our initiative and before crack of dawn we got up quietly and we covered each other dodging between the vehicles that were left on the front. He covered me; I covered him so many yards. How we got through was a miracle. I don’t where “Jerry” was, he must have been “standing down” because we had plenty of cover. “Jerry” was in the town then. How we did it I don’t know to this day because it meant coming along the harbour dodging between cars and what have you that the French had put there, we got from that cellar along the harbour wall, across the big bridge, which was a miracle, and then we met Major Lewis the other side. We were under Major Lewis’s guidance after that. Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.2
Elements of a German infantry division passing through a French town in May 1940.
Doug Davies had also decided that his best chance of escape lay in getting to the harbour. From his shelter behind the stinking dustbins of the fish market he also managed to get across the bridge and was overjoyed to find his company commander on the other side.
Major Windsor-Lewis now applied himself to the defence of the quays around the Gare Maritime. The cavernous sheds were packed with troops and refugees and Lieutenant Kenneth Roscoe of the RE was dispatched into the station itself to find out if it provided better cover and if it could be defended. On Roscoe’s return Windsor-Lewis, who had by now assumed command of the composite Allied force, moved all the refugees back into the shelters on the lower levels of the Gare Maritime itself. Soon afterwards the Germans, now realising that not all the Allied troops had escaped, opened fire on the sheds with small arms and shells from tanks, wounding several men. Windsor-Lewis immediately began to withdraw the men into the station under cover of the trucks and carriages of two trains, one of which was an empty hospital train, standing motionless at the platforms on either side of the station. Amongst the first out were Syd Pritchard and Bert Jeffers.
‘First of all we had to crawl under the wagons. He wanted two single men. I drew the short straw, I had to go first but that’s the luck of the draw isn’t it. He wanted us to go and come back and tell them if there was anybody left. In the meantime the Germans blew up the black shed; they set it on fire. “Jeff” and I had gone out we would have gone back, instead of that it was up in flames and they were coming to meet us, the boys and the evacuees; all the women and the children who were in there. They were all crouched in the corner when we’d found them.’ Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.3
The German fire had by now increased and they turned their attentions to the station itself.
‘For about an hour they just fired bullets into the station. They fired and fired and fired before that black shed went up. That’s where a lot got wounded. Major Lewis had a big five-foot wall of sandbags and we went there after. Syd and I met on the station.’ Guardsman Doug Davies. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.4
The sandbags were a godsend for Windsor-Lewis. They had been found in the station itself and he quickly set the many unarmed AMPC men to work building a breastwork in front of the station itself and on the left flank overlooking the town and the Customs House, whilst the Welsh Guards and French troops took up positions under cover and behind the trains. Doug Davies and Syd Pritchard were two of those ordered to take up fire positions behind one of the two trains, which were now coming under heavy fire from German tanks and machine-guns positioned just 400 metres away across the water of the Bassin a Flot , the present day Bassin Napoléon.
‘Imagine a big train station that’s what it was and this train of ours was nearer to the water than the others. There was no platform on the water side. We were three in a train and the train had sliding doors and we had just a few sand bags and we were firing at these tanks. They were firing across the water at our train from the tanks. An officer was standing outside his tank and he couldn’t care less what we were throwing at him. Then they must have fired a million bullets, just kept firing at the station. Underneath were the Pioneer Corps…’ Guardsman Doug Davies. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.5
‘At the black bridge the Red Cross carriages were all lined up beyond and there was a landing stage for the boats. On top it was like Euston all under cover. We had sandbags but there weren’t many. We sand bagged up the different doorways and used what we had for cover, any opening, the door between two carriages. Another good place was underneath between the railway track and the wheel. The wheel itself gave you a good view out. They had you measured all along. We saw a “Jerry” tank sitting right opposite on the other side of the harbour. You couldn’t fire freely because you didn’t have the ammunition. When ours had gone – the fifty bandolier – you were picking it up that had been left behind. A lad called Pugh was killed at the station. He’s on his own in Boulogne [cemetery]. I’m convinced that they’ve got the dates wrong. He was killed on the 24th, on the Friday, underneath an ambulance coach between two bogey wheels. I’d been there before him – in that position.’ Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.6
By midday the Allied force had established as good a defensive position as it could under such trying circumstances. All those holding the position were already exhausted and there was very little food and water to go round. For the rest of the day the Germans poured fire into the station and the trains as they tried to secure the harbour.
After a days rest, Leutnant Künzel and the rest of his motorcycle platoon had by now moved up into the suburbs of Boulogne itself after their fight against Sergeant Arthur Evans’s anti-tank gun on the evening of 22 May.
‘Together with panzers – behind each of them a MG squad – we advance through the town…Cautiously we secure to all sides; the advance is slow for all cellars are to be searched…After having mopped up some streets we approach the channel which divides Boulogne in two…In the channel are three patrol trawlers and several small merchantmen. On the other side there is, to the right, a railway station with several trains side by side, in the foreground a hospital train. The two panzers placed under the command of my platoon are brought up to the right and to the left at the corners of the houses whereas we mount our MG in the first floor of the half destroyed houses. In the moment when I was assigning covering parties for the panzers, vivid machine-gun fire starts from the hospital train mixed with the bangs of English anti-tank rifles. With a jump we take cover behind the tanks and the bullets hit the walls of the houses opposite. Now we start fireworks which totally stuns them over there. We reply to the enemy’s contravention of international law with all the weapons we have. Through the binoculars I clearly observe the doors of the hospital train to be protected with sand bags and that behind them are mounted MG’s or anti-tank rifles. Mortars forward! The distance is taken and…the light mortar is positioned behind a panzer on the cobble stone pavement and aimed ‘over a thick thumb’. The first grenade falls into the water, the second, third and fourth fall just behind the train, the fifth penetrates…above the anti-tank rifle and the five other grenades hit the train on different spots…For some minutes there is no more shooting. We observe a tricolor to be waved above a loophole. Will they surrender? I stand up beside a panzer and shout across, “Soldats francais, montrez le drapeau blanc et nous ne tirerons plus”. Then, a Frenchman appears before the train and lies down. I repeat my demand and order him to get up. He does so and disappears. Shortly afterwards there is shooting again from over there. Damned bastards! We reply with a hurricane of fire. An anti-tank gun is drawn forward and destroys an antitank rifle. After the mortar is aimed at the patrol trawler lying before the train it is finally quiet. In the meantime No. 2 and No. 3 platoon have mopped up the whole block and have about eighty Englishmen come out of the cellars.’ Oberleutnant Kü7
The Belgian hospital train at the Gare Maritime with red crosses marked on the carriage roofs. The Germans were furious when they were fired upon from the direction of these carriages. Bundesarchiv Koblenz
It was not the first time, nor would it be the last that front line soldiers would accuse those on the other side of an abuse of the Red Cross symbol but in many cases such accusations were probably based on errors of observation. The Allied troops were defending sections of the hospital train, albeit a hospital train from which all the wounded had been removed. The carriages which bore the Red Cross, however, were backed up towards the Pont Marguet and Syd Pritchard remains convinced that no Allied troops fired from them. Pritchard was by turns, in or under some of the unmarked carriages nearest the Gare Maritime and as far as he was concerned he was fighting for his life.
At about 6.00 pm a small party of German infantry attempted to attack Windsor-Lewis’s right flank by crossing the Bassin a Flot in a small boat, but were driven back by rifle, anti-tank rifle and Bren gun fire. It was at this time too that the first German artillery shells began to land on the narrow neck of land leading to the Gare Maritime.
Sometime around 10.00 pm the German fire died away and Windsor-Lewis was able to take some of the men like Pritchard and Davies out of the front line for a rest in relays. They had held the Germans at bay for a whole day. The question was, how long they could hold on?
The Germans had now occupied the whole town except for the Haute Ville and the Gare Maritime and it was clear that they were winkling out parties of British soldiers who had not managed to get away on board the destroyers. Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury and his fifty or so comrades were, however, not amongst the prisoners. Although Syd Pritchard and Bert Jeffers had taken matters into their own hands at first light to try and get to the port and Major Jones-Mortimer had disappeared along with Second Lieutenant Ion Garnett Orme to try and get in touch with the French, Hanbury had stayed put. He and the remaining officers spent the whole of Friday 24 May venturing cautiously from their hiding places to search for food from neighbouring houses. Intermittent shelling and machine gun fire went on all day and although panzers rattled ominously past the end of their street none of them ventured down it. The officers had no maps and everyone was by now thoroughly exhausted. The odds were stacked against them.
‘We hoped if we could improve the men’s morale we might make a break or that the Marines would come…I was now so tired my brain became numb. Day merged into night, as I had not slept properly for three nights. Either Peter [Black] or I were always going round sentries, while the other one was out scavenging for food.’ Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury. OC 12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.8
Corporal Joseph Bryan had trudged down the hill into town from St. Martin alone that morning. Although the Germans were by now on all sides he had walked as far as the high stone ramparts of the Haute Ville and had seen neither hide nor hair of them. He little knew that he was about to become involved in the French defence of the Old Town.
‘On the way down I passed an old castle and as I was passing there, there was another “Tommy” from the Service Corps I think. A French officer came to the edge of the wall, and waved for us to go in and as we went in he pointed to a gun and said “you can take turns manning it”.’ Corporal Joseph Bryan. 2 Welsh Guards attached 20 Guards Brigade Anti-Tank Company.9
Isolated in his HQ in the rue d’Hautmont behind the protective walls of the Haute Ville, the French General Pierre Lanquetot learned of the departure of 20 Guards Brigade with dismay. He had had precious little contact with Brigadier Fox-Pitt and the commanding officers of the two battalions of Guards since their arrival on the morning of 22 May. Lanquetot’s first HQ in the chateau de la Caucherie was but a stone’s throw north of the initial positions of 3 Company of the Welsh Guards at the Mont Lambert crossroads and even then he had had no contact with Lieutenant Colonel Stanier. It appeared, to French eyes at least, that the British had arrived in Boulogne with one aim in mind: to act unilaterally in the defence of the port.
Lanquetot had not been informed of the decision to land 20 Brigade in Boulogne and now, towards dawn on 24 May, he found that the British had departed during the night and once again he had been left in the dark. Worse still, a substantial part of the force he had reckoned on using to defend the town were by now safe on the other side of the English Channel. Even if the British had told him of their intentions it would have made little difference to Lanquetot. After the departure of the British he received an order from the French Admiral Abrial that he was to fight on come what may.
Lanquetot had moved his HQ to the Haute Ville on the evening of 22 May when he learned that the Germans had pushed a patrol between his HQ and the Welsh Guards in St. Martin. He had ordered all documents to be burned and had driven to the Citadel where he had abandoned his car in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. On his arrival Lanquetot had found a mixed garrison of French soldiers, sailors and marines defending the four main gates and lining the ancient ramparts which enclosed the Old Town. Commandant Berriat had organised the defence of the Château in the north-east corner whilst the ramparts were being held by infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Santini and the remnants of 13 Regiment Regionale under Colonel Wimet who had fought their way up to the Haute Ville the day before. They had been amongst the lucky few who had managed to escape to the relative safety of the Old Town. Of the rest of the French soldiers and marines who, during the night of 22/23 May, had been ordered to hold key points in four sectors of the town by General Caille, commanding the infantry of Lanquetot’s 21 Division, many had been killed or captured and the rest were still holding on stubbornly.
A scene of devastation outside the walls of the Haute Ville opposite the Porte Neuve. Note the damage to the wall to the right of the gate and the woman sitting on the bench between the disabled cars in the foreground. Bundesarchiv Koblenz
At the semaphore of the Tour d’Odre on the cliff tops overlooking the Boulevard Ste. Beuve, and the Casino, the 200 strong force under Commandant Henri Nomy had been captured at around 5.00 pm on 23 May after savage hand to hand fighting. Premier Maitre Jean Francois L’Her had been killed after shooting dead a German soldier who had been trying to cut down the French Tricolor. At the Pont de la Lampe a small force under Capitaine Sudre had fired their one and only 75mm field gun at the Germans until they too had been overwhelmed and killed. A little further along the bank of the Liane another party under Commandant Denneze were still hanging on. At the casino near the foot of the cliffs at the southern end of the Boulevard Ste. Beuve, another single 75mm gun and a force of 200 marines under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau de Saint-Remy had managed to hold out all day on 23 May but they were now desperately short of ammunition and almost surrounded. Beyond the walls of the Haute Ville in the streets to the south of the Porte Gayole, an area which had not as yet come under heavy attack, Lieutenant Colonel Franclieu and the men of his 417 Pioneers still held the Germans at bay from strong points in and around the rue Porte Gayole. Throughout the morning of 24 May the French braced themselves for the German assault which was launched in the afternoon.
Jean-François L’Her
‘13h. Like a tiger the Division leaps against the enemy desperately defending himself. In exemplary co-operation between panzers and infantry the eastern part of Boulogne is occupied. The Division commander himself [Veiel] is leading the combat, his officers assault at the head of their units…behind a ten to twelve metre high and uninterrupted wall of medieval origin the enemy has entrenched himself excellently. Artillery and Heavy Flak is thrown forward and is firing directly against the wall – in vain, the attack stops before the Cathedral. A half hour’s burst of fire by the heavy mortar battalion with subsequent assault remains without results. Again and again the men assault. Up and down the struggle rages. Hours pass away.’ Oberleutnant Dietz.10
The severity of the assault forced the French defenders on the Route de Calais and the streets around the rue Porte Gayole to fall back to the ramparts. It was a bitter struggle. The small force under Lieutenant de Vaisseau de Saint-Remy at the Casino held out until around 2.00 pm until they too gained permission to fight their way back up the hill to the Haute Ville as did the rest of Commandant Denneze’s party near the Pont de la Lampe. At 2.15 General Lanquetot ordered the symbolic burning of the 65 Infantry Regiment’s flag in the presence of General Caille and Commandant Rosmorduc, the OC of the 48 Infantry Regiment.
By 6.45 pm the Germans had fought their way to the foot of the ramparts but such was the ferocity of the resistance that they made little headway against the ancient walls. At around 8.00 pm a fresh attack fell against the Chateau, the Porte de Calais (Porte Neuve) and the Porte des Dunes. Again the Germans were held. Commandant Berriat defending the Château refused the surrender demands of two emissaries sent from General Veiel.
As darkness fell the Germans were still hammering at the walls and the fire continued throughout the hours of darkness. During the night General Guderian himself visited the forward HQ of the left Combat Group and took a telephone call from General Veiel. After the call he replaced the receiver slowly and sat down heavily in his chair. ‘Boulogne is to be captured today, gentlemen’ he said. ‘The troops are to be informed.’
Guderian discusses tactics with his officers.
Inside the Citadel, Lanquetot, still in touch with Admiral Abrial in Dunkirk, received permission to attempt a breakout at midnight but the hour passed and no attempt was made, however General Caille, Lanquetot’s Chief of Staff, Colonel Barande and Commandant Rosmorduc with an advance guard of fifteen men managed to escape through the German ring.
During the small hours of 25 May Lanquetot realised that it would be impossible to maintain the struggle for much longer. The Germans had cut the water supply, there was little food and ammunition was running out. Although the men in the Château and the Porte Gayole were holding on, the situation at the Porte des Dunes was precarious. Towards dawn on 25 May the Germans launched their final assault and resorted to siege tactics reminiscent of centuries past. Bringing up two 88mm anti-aircraft guns the Germans fired them point blank at the ramparts at two specific points; the first opposite the Rue Flahaut and the other just to the north of the Porte de Calais. With Oberst von Vaerst, OC 2 Schützen Brigade, directing the fire of the 88mm flak guns personally the thick walls began to yield under the relentless bombardment and eventually the walls were reduced almost to ground level. By 5.30 am, using scaling ladders, storming parties had broken into the Haute Ville in two places.
‘Flak rages against the Cathedral. A breach is made by direct shelling at close range. Soon the first storm troops assault with flame throwers and hand grenades by means of ladders crossing the wall. A fighting group at the north-east side is inside the Citadel. After a short time the enemy, defending desperately, is unable to stop the breach of the other fighting group.’ Oberleutnant Dietz.11
The battle raged on as the French fought for every stone of the Old Town. At 8.00 am two French prisoners carrying white flags approached the Porte de Calais with a German ultimatum for Lanquetot. ‘If the Citadel does not surrender Boulogne will be burned.’ Realising the futility of carrying on Lanquetot contacted Admiral Abrial in Dunkirk by telephone and was given permission to surrender but asked the Germans for time to convey the ceasefire message to the rest of the garrison.
It was at this time that Corporal Joseph Bryan’s war came to an end. After being waved into the Haute Ville by a French officer the previous day he had found his way down a little alleyway which led to a small room: windowless on the wall facing the road but with boards covering the windows on the other side. He was in there with four Belgian soldiers when the Germans broke through.
‘There was a real blast and a German soldier standing at the entrance had thrown some blast bombs in the alleyway and it blew the windows out that had been boarded up. I looked out onto a mass of soldiers all French with backpacks ready to go. It was like looking down from the stand onto a soccer field and the field was filled. I wondered later why a French officer had waved us in to man a gun when there were thousands of them there packed ready to go. That was the end of my tour of France. I was the only ‘Tommy’, plus the other one, that I could find or see anywhere. We were marched further north towards the border and that’s where we came together with some prisoners from Calais and later on some from Dunkirk.’ Corporal Joseph Bryan. 2 Welsh Guards attached 20 Guards Brigade Anti-Tank Company.12
German storming parties succeed in breaking into the Haute Ville using scaling ladders. From a contemporary German sketch.
These were the French soldiers who had heard of the surrender but the garrison in the Château were still fighting. A party of German pioneers assaulted the Château even as the bulk of the French were laying down their arms, and Commandant Berriat’s party fought on unaware of the ceasefire. Lanquetot was taken to see Guderian and Veiel and a message was sent to the 300 exhausted defenders of the Château urging them to cease fire. This they did and at 10.30 am the men marched out of the Porte de Calais towards the area known as the ‘Dernier Sou’ under the gaze of Oberstleutnant Decker OC 2 Schützen Regiment who was fulsome in his praise of the heroic French resistance.
The heroic French resistance in the Haute Ville is finally crushed. German troops secure the Rue Port Neuve.
Isolated pockets of French troops, oblivious of the surrender, fired on the Germans, shooting two near the Tour Francoise and another near the Porte des Dunes. It was the middle of the afternoon when the machine gun of Lieutenant Duplantier of the 417 Pioneers, firing from a building on the Rue Port Gayole, was finally silenced.
By the time Duplantier had been killed the final curtain had also fallen on Major Windsor-Lewis’s defence of the Gare Maritime.
The Germans had attacked just after ‘stand to’ on the morning of 25 May when the French infantry were holding the line and several men had been lost. Some time around 9.00 am Windsor-Lewis had scanned the high ground above the town through his binoculars and had seen large bodies of troops on the move. He had hoped that these might be French troops coming to his rescue but it soon became clear that they were German forces moving in to consolidate the town. Shortly afterwards the German artillery had opened up and another big shed had been blown to pieces. The wounded were now being ‘knocked about’ considerably. Major Windsor-Lewis had then gone out in a desperate bid to find an escape route to his right but two German tanks had the right flank covered. At noon Guardsmen Syd Pritchard and Doug Davies plus another man were back in position near the train to the west of the station itself and at this point the Germans, now strongly reinforced, hit Windsor-Lewis’s position with increased venom.
The Central Station completely destroyed. It stood near the site of the Foyer du Marin between the Ponts Marguet and Entente Cordiale. Bundesarchiv Koblenz
‘We had a roll call at the end and Lewis said “get the guardsmen together and I’ll tell them what’s happening”. He told chaps “so many up there, so many in the front” in the hot-spot right in the front line. Everybody was dirty and everybody did their stint. Lewis told us there was no hope – there was no way we were getting back. We were on this train, just the three of us firing. Windsor-Lewis was behind us with a load of sand bags, with no more than ten blokes and we did not know he had put the white flag up and we were firing. That’s when they blew us out of the flippin’ train because we were firing after the white flag had gone up. I always say that Syd and I were among the last three blokes in action at Boulogne; we had to be because they’d put the white flag up!’ Guardsman Doug Davies. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.13
‘I was under the impression that it was put up against his wishes. I think the French interfered there and he shot it down. According to Major Windsor-Lewis the Germans issued an ultimatum. He called a few of us together. He said, “destroy everything you’ve got, every mortal thing”. They’d sent over an ultimatum, “If you don’t surrender by 2 o’clock we’ll blow you out”. The French had attempted to put the white flag up two or three times and he’d sent somebody out to tear it down…but you didn’t give up hope until the very end.’ Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.14
The end was not long in coming. Such was the ferocity of the German onslaught that Windsor-Lewis decided to move back into the station itself, ‘…protected only by glass overhead and by a train on the left flank.’ It was a desperate situation and although his men saw Windsor-Lewis as a ‘fearless’ leader, he had others to think of besides himself and his Welsh Guards.
‘There was little food and ammunition left and no more water, and after another hour of the greatest discomfort I decided my position was quite hopeless and that a massacre would ensue if I did not capitulate. Having an eye to the number of refugees under my care and the big percentage of unarmed men I decided to surrender.’ Major J C Windsor-Lewis, OC 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.15
Doug Davies recalled the ferocity of the German attack on the train in the last few minutes before he was compelled to escape towards the station where he was finally taken prisoner along with Syd Pritchard.
‘I remember the last few minutes more or less being blown out of that train hearing bullets coming in – da da da da da da da – and we went to Major Lewis behind the sandbags and we just waited for the Germans to come. We’d finished our fighting. I’d used my ammunition. I could have got some I’ve no doubt but there was no point. Major Lewis said we’d finished. We just waited for the Germans to come and take us out. They were coming over the bridge. You can’t describe how you felt, terrible, terrible. They took your watches off, your rings off. There was no problem with their attitude at all. No brutality or anything like that, they just came as normal blokes. I had shrapnel wounds – lot of blood but no damage and they, the front line troops, made you take your jacket off and they bandaged it up. They did it with all of us.’ Guardsman Doug Davies. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.16
‘I was downstairs, that’s where I was when “Jerry” came in and I was giving water to a chap who was wounded and a German officer came up and spoke in perfect English.. He’d been wounded – shrapnel – big, tall fellow; a tank commander and he complimented Major Lewis on such a good fight. He said, “that’s all you are?” He was surprised by the small number of people we had. It was double figures but it was only a handful. I was leaning down by this wounded boy on a stretcher giving sips of water and he spoke to me, a proper gentleman – didn’t search me – and said, “don’t worry, for you the war is over, you are finished.” They took about half a dozen of us to one side to the back of a hotel. I thought, “this is the end now against the wall and finished” but no, they kept us there for an hour or so while they went through the town. I found that the front line troops were gentlemen, they treated you as a soldier.’ Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.17
Windsor-Lewis had nothing but praise for the stand his men had made.
‘My little force had fought most splendidly in the face of heavy odds. Exhausted and without proper nourishment they never lost heart.’ Major J C Windsor-Lewis, OC 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.18
Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury’s war had also come to end. He had been captured the previous day, on Friday 24 May. When he had woken that morning he had still harboured hopes of a fighting escape with his men even though he believed the French had surrendered and the Germans were all over the town. It was a forlorn hope. His diary, written soon after his arrival in a POW camp in Germany records the mixture of emotions he experienced on his capture.
‘The Germans had taken complete possession of Boulogne and the French had surrendered in the Citadel. Our men were in good form – Peter and I had organised quite a decent breakfast and made every man wash, shave and clean his weapon. We replenished the SAA from an abandoned RAF lorry. I found some .38 ammunition for my revolver, the intention being to make a break that night. Then Jack and Henry’s side shot a German bicyclist and that attracted two heavy tanks. They lumbered incredibly slowly up the road and then, with great deliberation, started to pump shells into “Jack’s house”. It was obviously hopeless, but Jack waited for interminable minutes before he surrendered. “Aus, Aus, Loss, Loss.” Weary minutes in which we were searched until our arms almost broke…The four officers were separated out and put against a wall, and a tank turret turned to point a machine gun at us. At that moment a German officer arrived and shouted at the tank crew, and we were returned to the men. I really didn’t care whether they shot us or not. I experienced a real relief not to feel one was the quarry of the Germans one could see on the hill from our look out. One of the German soldiers tried to pull off my signet ring but it was too tight…It was then that the bitterness of our position set in. We marched two miles to a field and halted. It was full of French. Spent the night with no protection in pouring rain…The men were marvellous and snuggled all round us to keep us warm.’ Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury. OC 12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.19
Hanbury, Pritchard, Davies, Windsor-Lewis and many more were now ‘in the bag’. Some, like the irrepressible Major Windsor-Lewis, would escape and go on to fight the Germans in other theatres. Most would spend the rest of the war in captivity. For these the battle for Boulogne was over and so, in effect, was the war. On the evening of 25 May Sergeant Arthur Evans, still in his hospital bed after having pieces of a grenade removed from his left ankle, noticed that all had become ‘ominously quiet.’ Evans was out of touch with what was happening in the town and couldn’t have done anything about it even if he had been. His injuries would not allow it. The next morning Evans was surprised to see an immaculately turned out German officer accompanying the surgeons on their rounds.
‘At the time my mind failed to comprehend the significance of his presence. Perhaps he had come to visit some German wounded? But no! This was my first day as a POW – only another one thousand eight hundred and eleven to go!’ Sergeant Arthur Evans, 2 i/c Anti-Tank Platoon, 2 Irish Guards, Attached 20 Guards Brigade.20
Courtesy the estate of Miss Malise Haydon
