CHAPTER FOUR
With the Channel calm the crossing to Boulogne was uneventful. As the convoy neared Boulogne the Whitshed carrying Brigadier Fox-Pitt steamed ahead to get in touch with the Adjutant General, Lieutenant General Douglas Brownrigg, in command of Rear Headquarters BEF based in Wimereux, a coastal resort four kilometres north of Boulogne. On board the Biarritz Guardsman Doug Davies of Number 3 Company 2 Welsh Guards, led by the fearless and hugely respected Major J C Windsor-Lewis of Aberdare, was issued with a cloth bandolier containing fifty rounds of small arms ammunition. That was all he was to carry into battle. Guardsman Syd Pritchard of 4 Company had already received his issue of fifty rounds on the bus whilst travelling to Dover. During a stop for sandwiches a cheery RSM Grant had told the men, ‘this is your issue. When you’ve killed twelve Germans you can come back home’.
As the rest of the convoy neared its destination many of the guardsmen saw their first glimpse of war. The 6,477 ton French oil tanker Ophelie was still ablaze after being bombed three kilometres off the coast during the night of 20-21 May. She was an eerie sight in the half-light of dawn, the flames spreading a deep red glow under the billowing pall of thick black smoke.
Major J C Windsor-Lewis.
The pall of black smoke from the striken tanker Ophelie is clearly visible from the heights near the village of St. Martin. Courtesy Mairie de Saint-Martin-Boulogne
‘My mate was a seafaring boy. He’d been brought up near the sea his father was a lighthouse keeper on the Mumbles so we got together on the boat and he looked after me. I remember “Jeff” [Guardsman Bert Jeffers] and me were priming hand grenades and I felt so sick and he said “I’ll take you upstairs.” When we got upstairs the first thing we saw was a tanker going up in flames. That cured my seasickness.’ Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 11 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.1
‘Approaching Boulogne at dawn, it was startlingly obvious that the Stukas had had a field day. The docks, warehouses and buildings surrounding the harbour were in ruins and still smoking. CSM McGarrity, in whose company I had served in Cairo before the war turned to me with a foreboding expression and said “We will never get out of here.” His pessimistic attitude surprised me. Firstly he was supposed to exude leadership and enhance morale. Secondly, until then I had been under the naϊve impression that we were on our way to Berlin!’ Sergeant Arthur Evans, 2 i/c Anti-Tank Platoon, 2 Irish Guards.2
Rain began to fall as the ships reached the mouth of the port where the boom was opened and the convoy entered the narrow harbour. The Biarritz eventually came alongside at exactly the spot where Lieutenant Colonel Stanier had landed in France as a nineteen year-old ensign in 1918 on his way to join 1 Welsh Guards in the trenches near Arras.
‘The quayside was absolutely crowded with people. Lines of communication, the Adjutant General’s staff, everybody coming from rear headquarters being evacuated to England whilst the rest of the Army was going to Dunkirk. The Duke of Gloucester’s two chargers for instance I remember standing there with their groom who asked me whether I could help him get them on board. They were all those sort of people… just standing there… no barging or shoving about.’ Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alexander Stanier Bt., MC. CO 2 Welsh Guards.3
Lieutenant General Brownrigg had orders to evacuate what were rather unflatteringly called ‘useless mouths’; non-combatant troops who would eat into scarce resources if allowed to stay in the theatre of operations. These men it seemed were acting under orders. There were even gardeners of the Imperial War Graves Commission who had tended the British First World War cemeteries in the area and were now ready to be evacuated with their families. These civilians with British passports had been separated from the rest of the refugees and collected together by men of 657 General Construction Company Royal Engineers under command of Captain F A Rayfield, who witnessed their departure aboard HMS Whitshed. That said, further along the quay there was considerable confusion as disorganised groups of wounded and able-bodied French, Belgian, Dutch and British soldiers mixed with civilian refugees and even a few German prisoners, scrambled for places aboard the newly arrived cross-Channel steamers. The scene which greeted the Irish, as they lined the decks of the Queen of the Channel, was not heartening. Fitzgerald’s The History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War records that the quay was a scene of ‘squalid confusion.’
‘It looked as if thousands of suitcases had been emptied on the ground by manic customs officers, and trampling over this sodden mass of clothes, bedding and filthy refuse was a horde of panic-stricken refugees and stray soldiers waiting to rush the ships. The battalion could not even disembark ‘til sailors and Guardsmen with fixed bayonets had cleared a lane through the sorry mob. The tide was low, none of the cranes were working and refugees, with the ingenuity of despair, found endless ways to board the ship – everything conspired to delay the unloading.’
Whilst the two commanding officers went off in search of Brigadier ‘Billy’ to find out what they were supposed to do, the battalions began the laborious process of disembarkation and assembly in the customs sheds on the dockside. During unloading Lieutenant Peter Hanbury witnessed a morale sapping sight.
‘Hell of a shambles in which Eddie [Beddingfield] and I remained on board, while Dickie [Twining] and Jack [Higgon] organised the shore side.
Men of 2 Irish Guards unloading boxes of biscuits from the Queen of the Channel onto the Quai Chanzy in Boulogne during the morning 22 May 1940. Courtesy RHQ Irish Guards
Looking south along the Quai Chanzy where Irish Guards are unloading stores from the Queen of the Channel.
Men of 2 Irish Guards prepare to move off from the quayside to march out to their positions in the village of Outreau. Courtesy RHQ Irish Guards
The cranes and the French had given up work so everything had to be manhandled. Eventually before we were half unloaded the RAMC rushed on. It was extremely upsetting to have the ship blocked, so that it was impossible to walk along the gangways, and it also shook one’s morale to see 400 men all wounded and a few dead before the battle started. Eddie and I worked at the beginning of a chain unloading stores in the hold until we nearly dropped, and at that moment an air raid came and we leapt off the ship as she set off to get out of port.’ Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury. OC 12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.4
Guardsman Arthur Boswell managed a brief exchange with one of the wounded men waiting to embark for England. ‘What’s it like up there?’ he asked, ‘You’ll find out,’ came the laconic reply. At the time Arthur Boswell was labouring under the impression that ‘the front’ was a ‘couple of hundred miles away!’ As the Guards came off the ships they trooped into the customs sheds on the quayside where they fretted with impatience awaiting the return of their commanding officers. Sergeant Arthur Evans suddenly heard a gunshot from the direction of the Welsh contingent. The word went round that a Welshman had shot himself in the foot but the man, another by the name of Davies, was in Lieutenant Hanbury’s platoon and he had witnessed the incident.
‘On the shore Davies blew his thumb off, and I was very nearly sick. He suffered frightfully, poor boy. Sgt. Richardson was very efficient in putting on a first aid dressing. Sergeant Gould was sick – that made me feel much better to know that other people felt worse than me.’ Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury. OC 12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.5
It was sometime around 11.00 am when the two ships began to leave with their cargo of wounded and non-combatants but by that time Lieutenant Colonels Stanier and Haydon had returned from their briefing with Brigadier Fox-Pitt and were moving forward to make a detailed reconnaissance of their allotted positions.
The Brigadier had met Lieutenant General Brownrigg at his HQ in Wimereux at 7.00 am that morning and had been told that according to reports received one German motor transport column had been reported at Etaples 26 kilometres down the coast with tanks in the area of the Forest of Crécy. To combat this threat Brownrigg told Fox-Pitt that the dispositions of British troops beyond the boundaries of Boulogne were thought to amount to a few road blocks held by a handful of Royal Engineers and antiaircraft personnel sited between twelve and fourteen kilometres out of Boulogne along the main roads leading south and south-east. In the town itself there were estimated to be over 1,500 British personnel belonging to the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (AMPC) whom, according to the official report later compiled by 20 Guards Brigade,
‘…had not taken up any tactical positions, and were of no military value, as the officers and NCO’s had no control over them, and it was found impossible to form them into a fighting force.’
These troops were in addition to the anti-aircraft defence for Boulogne which consisted of eight 3.7 inch guns of 2 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, eight machine guns of 58 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment and one battery of 2 Searchlight Regiment.
The observation that the AMPC were of ‘no military value’ was perhaps a little harsh under the circumstances despite the fact that its ranks were filled with a medley of non-military skilled volunteer workers, young conscripts and middle aged and ‘elderly’ reservists, ten thousand of whom had been recalled to the ‘Colours’ in September 1939. It was true that in the early days of the war the AMPC companies in France had earned an unenviable reputation as unkempt, ill-disciplined bodies of men, lacking in military training and with perhaps only one in five armed and able to use their obsolete rifles. Morale had been poor, esprit de corps non-existent; the reservists clung to their old regimental ties and saw their drafting to the ‘inferior’ AMPC as a slight. It was not an uncommon sight in those early days for up to one hundred men to be brought up to their respective orderly rooms each morning for some breach of discipline or regulations. However, their elderly senior officers were almost wholly men with long military records and although units of command were large – three officers to more than two hundred men – slowly but surely they began to improve both discipline and the woeful lack of supplies from the higher authorities. One such man was Colonel Donald Dean commanding 5 Group AMPC. If the men of 5 Group could not look up to Dean then they could not look up to anyone for Dean was entitled to wear the ribbon of the Victoria Cross (VC) on his breast, Britain’s most esteemed military decoration earned for valour and leadership whilst holding a precarious position north-west of Lens under heavy fire between 24-26 September 1918.
Colonel Donald Dean VC
On 19 May Dean’s 5 Group was in Doullens and, with the Germans sweeping around the Allies to the south, he was ordered to get his command to Boulogne by whatever means possible. Between 10 and 18 May he had managed to put Doullens in a state of defence and had scrounged enough rifles to arm half of his men by the time his 1,200 strong command set off on the twenty-seven kilometre journey to St. Pol which they reached that night. Throughout the following day Dean had, by bribery and persuasion, encouraged a train driver to take his men to Boulogne. After a small party had been despatched to the south- east to engage motor cycle reconnaissance units of 6 Panzer Division near Nuncq, the Pioneers had left that evening and arrived in Wimereux on the morning of 21 May having collected small parties from an assortment of other AMPC companies and retiring units such as 5 Buffs. Dean’s command had by then swelled to 1,500. General Brownrigg had immediately ordered Dean to guard his HQ and early on 22 May issued a further order for him to lead a party of 250 men to hold the crossings of the Canche between Etaples and Montreuil. Dean had set off but soon realised he had been outflanked by the Germans and withdrew to Boulogne just in time to witness the arrival of 20 Brigade. As befits a holder of the VC he had reported to Fox-Pitt and put his men at the Brigadier’s disposal. Some of these men, experienced old soldiers, would, despite their reputation and the reservations of the regular Army officers, play their part in the coming battle.
As far as the French were concerned, three battalions of their 21 Infantry Division, led by General Lanquetot, were thought to have thrown a protective arm around the south and south-east of the town on a line from Neufchâtel to Samer, about fourteen kilometres away, with the intention of extending the line as far as Desvres when the rest of the division arrived by train from the east. In fact there were not three full battalions at all. The division had been on the move from the Hazebrouck area since 12 May on their way to Abbeville to help stiffen the Somme line. On 20 May General Lanquetot had made ready to follow his motorised units but on reaching St. Omer he had been informed that the Germans had seized the Somme crossings. He had headed for Boulogne the next day and at 6.00 pm on 21 May had been ordered to defend Boulogne with whatever troops he had available. The only units of his own division which had not managed to cross the Somme before the Germans took the bridges were four 25 mm guns of the 48 Infantry Regiment near Neufchâtel, and 1 and 3 Battalions of 65 Infantry Regiment with one battery of 75s around Questrecques near Desvres. Troops from a divisional instruction centre were pressed into service to support these units near the town of Samer. In addition Lanquetot could call on a number of French naval gunners who manned five coastal batteries, the guns of which could only fire seaward.
Battle map of 10 Panzer Division showing their advance towards Calais. The capture of Boulogne was assigned to 2 Panzer Division Courtesy Bundesarchiv Freiburg
French troops advance to block the lightning German advance.
One such battery was Fort de la Creche, built in the late nineteenth century on high ground overlooking the town two kilometres to the north, and held by a detachment of French naval gunners under Lieutenant de Vaisseau de Forton, with one troop of British 2 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment armed with 3.7 inch guns in close proximity. There were also up to 2,000 French recruits in the Old Town or Haute Ville area who were deemed unready for combat by their superiors and almost 4,000 raw Belgian recruits, many unarmed, aged between sixteen and twenty-one who had been evacuated from Etaples and whose commander wished them to be removed to England post haste.
Brownrigg’s instructions to Fox-Pitt were simple, ‘Boulogne was to be held’. The Brigadier was also told that a battalion of tanks and a battalion of the Queen Victoria’s Rifles were due to land that night at Calais and that he could expect them the next morning to bolster his defence. With that Fox-Pitt was issued with just five one-inch maps of the area for the whole brigade and a few of smaller scale before making his way back to the harbour in Boulogne to brief his battalion commanders. Brigadier Fox-Pitt then set out to reconnoitre the town and its environs in the company of Lieutenant Colonel Haydon and the commanding officer of 275 Anti-Tank Battery of 69 Anti-Tank Regiment.
Boulogne is a town cut in two by the River Liane which meanders its way to the coast through a valley in the surrounding hills. What level ground there is near the harbour basins is small in area and hemmed in by higher ground which, especially to the east, rises steeply above the coast road. Even in 1940, buildings such as the customs sheds, numerous other warehouses and the buildings of the fish market congested the harbour area. From the harbour to the east the town climbed the steep hill up to the ancient walled Haute Ville or Citadel. Beyond the Haute Ville the road to Desvres hauled its way up another long rise to the village of St. Martin Boulogne which lay in the shadow of the glowering heights of Mont Lambert. To the west of the Liane, beyond a line between Outreau and the cliffs of Le Portel on the coast, lay more undulating high ground The nature of the high rolling ground incised with steep valleys and undulations, and the fact that he had just two battalions with which to defend the town, concentrated Fox-Pitt’s mind. He did not have the manpower to hold a perimeter well outside the town, indeed the undulating nature of the ground offering many hidden approaches along with commanding heights, was ideal tank country. Neither did he wish to reduce his frontage by holding a perimeter within the town and run the risk of his force becoming embroiled in the very worst kind of infantry action – a street fight in a built up area. Fox-Pitt decided that he would hold a line ‘guarding the entrances to the town and…along the edge of it…as affording the best anti-tank obstacle.’ He determined to fight for the surrounding hills for once they fell Boulogne would be at the mercy of the German panzers. Even so the perimeter chosen was approximately twelve kilometres in length, a staggering distance for just two battalions without transport. The River Liane naturally divided the perimeter in two; all that remained was to decide which battalion would hold which flank. The Welsh Guards had sailed with a strength of 972 of all ranks, although forty-eight were attached to HQ 20 Brigade, the Irish had 720 and since the perimeter to the east of the River Liane was greater than that to the west the allocation of sectors came as no surprise.
A contemporary map of Boulogne. Courtesy Institut Geographique National
‘The Brigadier told us that our job was to hold Boulogne from the enemy until the withdrawal was complete. The Irish Guards were to be on the right…while we, on the left, should hold from Boulogne out to Mount Lambert and back to the sea. We covered what we could but it was not possible to cover all of the left flank towards Wimereux and the sea. There was no accurate information regarding the enemy, no transport and no artillery or tanks. Any transport found in the street was to be taken and used. Luckily I did find a car, but with no ignition key; however an ingenious person got it to work with the aid of a sardine can opener. Maps were issued but when they were unrolled, they turned out to be maps of Kent with Calais in the bottom right hand corner! We did eventually get two proper maps, but somebody immediately spilled ink over one so that I had the only serviceable one. I could only therefore issue very simple orders to the Company Commanders such as: “Follow the tramlines and when you come to a railway bridge, stop.” Or “Go up there past the church and stop at the first crossroads and I will meet you later.”’ Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alexander Stanier Bt., MC. CO 2 Welsh Guards.6
At 11.15 am Lieutenant Colonel Stanier met Brigadier Fox-Pitt at the village of St. Leonard four kilometres south of Boulogne on the road to Samer. He was ordered to hold a triangular perimeter east of the Liane with the river at its base, out along the road which ran north-east, uphill along the crest of the northern slopes of the Ravin de Pont Pitendal from Ostrohove to Varoquerie and up as far as the triangle’s apex; the main cross roads northeast of Mont Lambert. Turning the line west from the cross roads near Mont Lambert and back along the Desvres road through St. Martin, blocking as many roads as possible back to the sea, would complete the triangle. The total length of the perimeter was about eight kilometres but with 1 Company not yet arrived the distance was just too great for it to be held effectively. In the event a little under six kilometres was held with the left flank, from a little way west of St. Martin to the sea, left open. 2 Company (Major HMC Jones-Mortimer) would take positions from the Liane to the village of Ostrohove with HQ Company, (Captain R B Hodgkinson) equipped as a rifle company, protecting battalion HQ and the village of Ostrohove itself. 3 Company (Major J C Windsor-Lewis) were to continue the line from Ostrohove up to the cross roads near Mont Lambert. 7 platoon were detailed to hold a cross roads near a café at La Madeleine whilst 9 platoon was to cover the important junction where the minor road from Ostrohove to Rottembert crossed the main Desvres-Boulogne road 500 metres or so north-east of the summit of Mont Lambert. 8 platoon, which included Guardsmen Arthur Boswell and Doug Davies, would cover the cross roads from the north and push sections onto Mont Lambert itself. Captain Jack Higgon’s 4 Company would hold the rest of the line from the junction with 3 Company as far as the church in the square of St. Martin, blocking roads and watching the country to the north. On their arrival 1 Company (Captain Cyril Heber-Percy) would take up position to the left of 4 Company and block the many roads and tracks around the church in St. Martin.
By the time Lieutenant Colonel Stanier had received his orders from Brigadier Fox-Pitt, 2 and 4 Companies were already on their way from the docks, marching out to their first rendezvous in St. Leonard. For the men of 4 Company the march would take them almost the entire length of the battalion perimeter under trying circumstances until they finally arrived in their allotted sector. Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury recalled that everyone filled their packs with bully beef and began their march from the harbour through crowds of refugees and a rabble of retreating troops. As the men settled down they began to sing in time honoured Welsh tradition much to the surprise of the fleeing refugees.
‘We were all very tired and hungry. The officers had not eaten or slept except for a packet of biscuits and one hour’s sleep on the boat. After about an hour’s marching we halted opposite some French heavy artillery, which appeared to be abandoned (They were huge, very primitive guns operated by driving in a wedge to raise or lower the barrel – I think from a museum.) we marched up a narrow, congested lane, and eventually reached our positions. I was in reserve and succeeded in borrowing a few shovels from the inhabitants and started digging in. PSM Hooks dug like hell; Sgts. Cook and Holder were very efficient. This was about 4 o’clock.’ Second Lieutenant Peter Hanbury. OC 12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards. 7
Guardsman Charles Thompson was one of the men in Peter Hanbury’s platoon whilst Syd Pritchard in 11 Platoon, found the march especially taxing.
‘On leaving the centre of Boulogne and reaching the top of the long hill where the houses became spread out and with open country ahead I saw the road crowded with every kind of transport, people on foot, bicycles and anything that could carry a few belongings; an occasional soldier, some still carrying a rifle whilst others were unshaven, weary with all the fight knocked out of them but evidently some ack-ack men manning the guns were resisting. They had a German plane in trouble having encircled it with bursting shells. The inevitable happened and the plane was hit. Down it came with smoke trailing behind, one less to harass the retreating column. It was not long before heavy German guns could be heard clearly and shortly afterwards rifle and machine-gun fire. We were allocated a position on the breast of a hill in open country overlooking a wide valley. My trench was in a forward position with a good view over the valley and by late afternoon everyone was ready to meet an attack should one come.’ Guardsman Charles Thompson.12 Platoon, 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.8
‘We were the last to leave the harbour after all the other companies had been distributed in the town and we were told to get to St. Martin. For some reason or another our machine-gunner had vanished. Our Sergeant got landed with the gun and I got landed with the tripod – a heavy old thing. I was carrying that through Boulogne and I remember I tripped over something, put my knee out, and I was limping but I had to forget it – had to march, passing 2 Company on our left. They were digging in in a swede field or a potato field. Anyway we were up on a bank and “Jeff” shouted to me – he’d been transferred to 2 Company – and he said, “bloody see you in Blighty” and we carried on to St. Martin and were detailed off to do this and that. Our corporal had vanished and some time during the afternoon I was told to take over an anti-tank gun. I said “I’ve never fired the damn thing.” I was told “you won’t have to worry, there’s one in the breech and one other round by your side.” If you missed with the first you wouldn’t have time for the second one! We had two rounds! We were told to dig in which we did not far from the church, around the corner. I remember a water pump in the village. That evening I went out with Captain Coombe-Tennant and Sergeant Hendry after dark on a reconnaissance and we came up against a lot of French refugees. Coombe-Tennant could speak French and he explained to them who we were. I was instructed to bring them back to HQ and hand them over – our password was “Tower of London” – and then went back to join Coombe-Tennant and the Sergeant. Guardsman Syd Pritchard. 4 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.9
The men of 3 Company found that their march took them furthest from the town and into a sharp arrow-head of a salient with its tip pointing east down the road to Desvres in the shadow of Mont Lambert. The road was one of the main routes into Boulogne from the east and an obvious line of advance for armour. Guardsmen Doug Davies, Arthur Boswell and the best part of 8 Platoon found themselves to be metaphorically, and shortly to be quite literally, at the sharp end of the Welsh Guards line.
‘The first night, Wednesday night, I’ll always remember it, 3 Company were immediately sent out and we went straight up as far as possible, marched and marched. Our first position was just lying flat on the ground. Then after that you dug in wherever you could – slit trenches – so you’d dive into one of them. I remember two of us lying in a corner looking at what we’d dug – cold night it was – and we just lay there all night looking at nothing but then there again the Germans weren’t far away because the next morning they shot us up. The platoon took positions around and that’s all I remember about anything organised. I didn’t even know who was in charge. I was just told to go ‘over there’ with another bloke and take up a position.’ Guardsman Doug Davies. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.10
Arthur Boswell remembers moving out along the Liane’s eastern bank, taking a left turn and marching in single file up a narrow road on the outskirts of the town and into ‘open country.’
‘At times the troops were ordered to “dig in” and then to “move on’. Moving forward to a crossroads, the troops were deployed and dug-in to weapon pits, staggered in design and for one or two soldiers per dug-out. It was then that Sergeant Tom Pennington another guardsman and me were sent forward to higher ground as a forward outpost. After a very near miss of a bomb, we were recalled to join the line of dug-outs. Back in our dugouts we watched as an unending stream of refugees passed through our lines heading for Boulogne.’ Guardsman Arthur Boswell. 8 Platoon, 3 Company, 2 Welsh Guards.11
Corporal Joseph Bryan was helping to man one of a group of three 25mm anti-tank guns under overall command of Lance Sergeant William Green from Bargoed in Glamorgan. Green’s gun was one of six from 20 Brigade anti-tank company allotted to 2 Welsh Guards. Due to the difficulties in finding transport at the docks they were late arriving but as soon as they appeared they were deployed in support of the forward companies.
‘When we arrived we had with us three old fashioned French guns. They were more like a farmer’s plough with iron wheels and a metal seat, they couldn’t be towed they had to be man handled. We loaded these onto a flat-topped truck and proceeded inland a little bit then we turned towards the north. We stopped at a place which was elevated from the town, in a kind of a lane, and we set up there looking into a long green valley. There were two or three houses on the left hand side of the lane but the grass and everything was beautiful to look at. Sergeant Green placed his two guns near to two clumps of bushes and I put mine near a wall which I guess was originally a kind of sports field, there was a beautiful lawn inside and a kind of a tower there – I think it might have been used as a broadcast tower at one time or another. It was right out in the country, just as you would picture a road out of any English village.’ Corporal Joseph Bryan. 2 Welsh Guards attached 20 Guards Brigade Anti-Tank Company.12
Owing to the length of the perimeter it was impossible to site the guns in any depth and a lack of tools meant that only the gun crews could dig themselves in. The guns had to be hauled behind whatever meagre cover was available, a state of affairs which was to have disastrous consequences for Sergeant Green and the men of the anti-tank crews once spotted by the Germans.
As he toured the line during the afternoon in his requisitioned car, Lieutenant Colonel Stanier became only too aware that his battalion’s deployment left a lot to be desired. 1 Company had arrived in position at around 3.30 pm and had dug in amongst the gardens and back lanes around the church at St. Martin just north of the junction of the roads to St. Omer and Desvres. Stanier had instructed his company commanders to hold all the main crossroads but there were huge gaps between positions.
‘Unending streams of refugees’ – the innocent victims of war.
‘We held the main crossroads. There were foxholes of about three men – rather like the First War – but no communication with them. They didn’t link up with fire all around. Others made barricades on the roads; with furniture I’m afraid which was the only thing we’d got. We had too big a front but if we went further back then we lost touch by the houses.’ Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alexander Stanier Bt., MC. CO 2 Welsh Guards.13
Bearing in mind all the difficulties and the certainty that there was ‘dead ground’ between platoons and companies; Stanier felt that his observation was quite good. At least the Germans could not approach down the main road through the village of Mont Lambert or over the tracks and open fields without showing themselves.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the River Liane, the Irish Guards had been marching in single file up through Outreau to a line which described an inverted arc of three and a half kilometres stretching from the village of Manihen on the banks of the Liane to positions overlooking the harbour breakwater just north of Le Portel on the coast. With 1 Company (Captain Conolly R McCausland MC) not yet arrived, 4 Company (Captain L D Murphy) held the high ground on the battalion’s left flank around the triangulation point and reservoir south of Outreau, an area known as the Tour de Renard. 2 Company (Captain J W R Madden) was to their right holding the village of Outreau and the line up to the main road to Le Portel and the junction with 3 Company (Captain C K Finlay). The line from the main road to the coast, covering all tracks and approaches from the south was the responsibility of 3 Company.
The Irish Guards Chaplain, Father Julian Stoner, recalled the men reaching the centre of Outreau and falling out to rest on pavements and smoke while Lieutenant Colonel Haydon escorted his company commanders around their positions. There was a bakery in the main square and the delicious smell of freshly baked bread wafted across to the starving Irish. He watched longingly as a French woman handed out long loaves of bread to a crowd of Belgian soldiers but although famished, none of the Irish Guards joined in and a man in Father Stoner’s position could hardly be seen to be the first.
It was hunger which almost led to Sergeant Arthur Evans getting lost. Moving off from the docks he and his comrades had driven into town and assembled in Place Dalton next to the church of St. Nicolas just off the Grand Rue to await orders.
‘During this interval I walked around to the back of a restaurant [Chez Alfred] to see if a meal could be rustled up for the lads. But despite some arguing – some in English and some in French – they did not want to know. I retraced my steps and to my horror and surprise the square was empty. My platoon had driven off without me. I hitched a ride on a passing Army truck to catch them up but on the outskirts of Wimereux I learned that …their destination was Calais, where they planned to embark for the UK. Somehow or other I made my way back to the port and by mid-afternoon I was re-united with my platoon. Much to my chagrin, it appeared my absence had not been noticed.’
Arthur Evans found that his platoon had been divided in two. His half, with two guns, was covering the main road through Outreau to the port with the other two guns responsible for covering the coast road at the junction between 2 and 3 Company.
‘We had an ideal line of fire and were facing a right hand bend about 400 yards away. Immediately in front of us was a low stone wall about two and a half feet high. Behind us were some houses.’ Sergeant Arthur Evans, 2 i/c Anti-Tank Platoon, 2 Irish Guards.14
All along the Irish line the men could hear the gunfire growing louder. Most of them had learned a hard lesson from the Hook of Holland expedition and had ‘dug like beavers’, quickly and deeply with the picks and shovels each section had been made to carry once their positions had been finalised. Even so the years of restricted peacetime training had left its mark. One Guardsman turned to his platoon commander and asked, ‘Are we allowed in these gardens, sir or are they out of bounds?’
Men of the German motorcycle unit of the 2 Panzer Division take a break before continuing their incredible odyssey.
By 1.00 pm the men of 2, 3 and 4 Companies were as ready as they ever would be. 1 Company was on its way after landing and it would be squeezed into the line on the extreme left flank between the Liane and in advance of the forward platoons of 4 Company. By the time Arthur Evans had moved into position the French units at Samer and Neufchâtel were fighting for their lives against the Germans.
Before mid-afternoon Lieutenant Colonel Haydon had begun to receive reports of lone German ‘vehicles’ sighted on the high ground south of Outreau. To the south somewhere, just over the horizon, the rumbling gunfire told the Irish that the rest of 2 Panzer Division were close behind. Brigadier Fox-Pitt ordered an officers’ patrol to move south to establish exactly the positions of the units of the French 21 Division and those of the advancing Germans. Lieutenant Peter Reynolds, son of Major Douglas Reynolds of the Royal Field Artillery who had won the VC near Le Cateau in August 1914 and died two years later, borrowed a car and offered to drive south. Accompanied by three guardsmen in the back and two motor cycle despatch riders (DRs) he set off into the unknown. The patrol reappeared about an hour later unscathed. Reynolds had seen neither hide nor hair of the French or indeed the Germans for that matter but he did report that he had been shot at from a wood just north of Nesles.
Even so the presence of lone German vehicles on the hills to the south was proof that the Germans were within sight of Boulogne. These were just the scouts, others were sure to follow and the men on the left flank of the Irish line would be the first to receive them.