CHAPTER SEVEN
The German assault on the Irish Guards line, which began at 7.30 am on 23 May, initially fell on 1 Company as it had the previous day. Panzers began to advance along the low road through Outreau which had been opened the night before with the destruction of the Irish anti-tank guns. Oberleutnant Künzel watched the tanks and rifle companies advance as he and his men took advantage of a days rest from the fighting. As they rested they witnessed the first of the prisoners being marched out of Boulogne as the Germans combed out the southern suburbs.
‘At the double they arrive, all races: Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen, Negroes from the Belgian Congo…Algerians, Moroccans – and Englishmen…the Englishmen show proud, dogged faces. Now they are marching ’to Berlin’ but as prisoners! Among the uninterrupted streaming columns…there are too, the ‘Englishmen’ who had manned the anti-tank gun position, all tall fellows. Irish Guards as we learn. They had behaved tough.’ Oberleutnant Künzel1
Instead of pressing their assault against 1 Company as they had done the previous day the Germans quickly switched the point of attack to Captain Murphy’s 4 Company, concentrating particularly on the forward platoon led by Lieutenant Peter Reynolds, dug in near the reservoir and trigonometrical point at la Tour de Renard. Reynolds’ platoon held a hump of high ground which fell away on both flanks and to their rear. From the summit of the hump a track ran due south-west across level ground and dipped after some 600 metres just before meeting another track coming uphill from Manihen. Beyond the reservoir were patches of ’dead ground’ and there were many hidden folds and hollows to the southwest which could conceal approaching armour. Reynolds’ position was not an envious one. The loss of 1 Company’s forward platoon and the destruction of the anti-tank guns to his left the night before had left him somewhat exposed, particularly as there were large gaps between him and the platoon under Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie dug in near the farm at the road junction 300 metres or so to his right rear. Here, in places where the ground fell away from the summit to the west, some of Jack Leslie’s posts were below the level of the surrounding hills.
French colonial troops being rounded up by the Germans in the town suburbs.
Lieutenant Peter action 23 Courtesy Sir John Leslie May 1940. Reynolds. Killed in
‘Peter Reynolds was to my left but we had lost contact with his platoon as we were stretched too thinly.’2 Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie, 4 Company, 2 Irish Guards
The Germans began by shelling Reynolds with guns and mortars and then lifted their fire to concentrate on the rest of the battalion front. As the guns lifted the tanks moved in to isolate the platoon. With no supporting arms the Irish Guards fought armour with rifle bullets for more than an hour but it was only a matter of time before the panzers, realising the lack of Irish firepower, seized their chance to drive straight over and through the guardsmen. At this point Lieutenant Simon Leveson appeared on foot with the leading section of his carrier platoon to reinforce Reynolds. Leveson had been ordered forward from the centre of Outreau to reinforce 1 Company but as he advanced he came to the conclusion that Reynolds was in need of more help than 1 Company at that time. With his leading section he moved towards the pocket being so valiantly defended by Peter Reynolds and his men.
‘Simon Leveson came walking up with his platoon in single file. At that time there was a lull in the firing and Simon told me that a German attack was imminent. He took his men and an anti-tank gun he had up to the platoon at the top of the hill and got killed there.’3 Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie, 4 Company, 2 Irish Guards
By 8.45 am the situation around la Tour de Renard had become so grave that the only option left to Captain Murphy was to withdraw Reynolds’ men quickly if they were to be saved at all. Lieutenant Colonel Haydon agreed but by then it was already too late. The German noose had tightened and Reynolds and Leveson were surrounded. Captain Murphy and Captain Reid tried desperately to reach them but each time they did so the torrent of fire sweeping the hillsides beat them back. There was no doubt in Captain Murphy’s mind that no-one could have got through to Reynolds’ platoon alive.
‘The German tanks came up from a direction we weren’t expecting. They came up from the direction of the railway. They had obviously curved around our flank. Shells from our own destroyers began to land on the road ahead of us as they tried to break up the German advance.’4 Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie, 4 Company, 2 Irish Guards
Both Peter Reynolds and Simon Leveson were killed in action whilst Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie and the wounded Lieutenant Pat Butler, were captured.
Lieutenant Hugh Simon Leveson Killed in action 23 May 1940. Courtesy Sir John Leslie
‘There were bullets flashing all around us in our trenches and a lot of noise – people were shouting at the tops of their voices and the next thing we knew a German sergeant appeared some yards off wielding a stick grenade shouting, “Aus, Aus, Aus.” There was nothing for it but to get out of our trench. If we hadn’t he would have blown us all to pieces. We had to run about 200-300 yards back towards the German positions near the reservoir where they lined us up as the battle moved on. Later all the wounded were treated along with the German wounded and we spent the night in the field there before we were marched off towards Montreuil.’5 Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie, 4 Company, 2 Irish Guards
Only nineteen men of 4 Company would answer their names during roll call on their eventual return to England out of 107 other ranks who left Dover for Boulogne on 22 May.
Now that the Germans had destroyed the forward platoons of both 1 and 4 Companies it was perhaps inevitable that Lieutenant Colonel Haydon began to think in terms of readjusting his line. At 9.00 am Captain McCausland collected his remaining men and withdrew to the centre of Outreau where they covered the road leading down the hill into Boulogne and the road leading to Battalion HQ around the point where the railway disappeared into the Tunnel de l’Ave Maria which ran for almost two kilometres beneath Outreau towards the coast on it way to the southern quays of the harbour. Haydon visited Captain Murphy at 4 Company HQ fifteen minutes later and ordered him to pull his left flank back to join hands with 1 Company. He then ordered Captain Madden to send a platoon of 2 Company to stiffen the left flank of Murphy’s depleted command. Such was the pressure being brought to bear on 4 Company however, that forty-five minutes later Murphy was forced to withdraw again from the southern outskirts of Outreau to positions on the left of 1 Company which approximated the line of the railway tunnel on the few maps Lieutenant Colonel Haydon possessed. 2 Company pulled its left flank back to conform whilst the men of 3 Company, as yet unmolested, remained in their original positions astride the coast road near Le Portel. Lieutenant Colonel Haydon sent Major Ross, his second in command, further back down the hill towards Boulogne to reconnoitre a new and shortened line of defence. His original intention was to hold the line with three companies, keeping 2 Company in reserve but the intention was never realised. He had not at that stage appreciated the fact that, ‘…1 and 4 Companies had already been reduced to almost microscopic numbers.’
Courtesy the estate of Miss Malise Haydon
Just as a light railway had run through the rear of the Welsh line, so one ran behind the Irish. From its furthest extremity in Le Portel the line ran due north-east towards the Liane for approximately one kilometre before taking a long, slow left hand curve down the hill towards the docks, a further 1,250 metres distant. The section of the railway as it ran downhill just after the left hand curve, formed part of the new line selected by Major Ross from which the battalion could cover the western and southern approaches to Boulogne on the west bank of the Liane. The Irish began the withdrawal to their new positions in gardens and houses astride the light railway at around 10.30 am and the bulk of the battalion was in position an hour later, minus 3 and 1 Companies. 3 Company, which had thus far escaped face-to-face contact with the Germans on the right flank, later withdrew without molestation to conform to the new line. 1 Company on the other hand were at that time still heavily engaged by German troops who had dogged their withdrawal every step of the way into Outreau The guardsmen had been exchanging fire with groups of Germans at ranges of between thirty and fifty metres since before 9.45 am and had beaten off every attempt to outflank them. Captain McCausland finally extricated his remaining men and moved down towards the light railway where he joined the rest of the battalion at 11.45 am. It was a superb example of discipline under fire taking into account the heavy and repeated attacks the company had endured the previous day and the resultant casualties. Excluding his officers, McCausland had landed with 100 men under his command. Only forty would manage to get back home and most of the sixty who would later be posted as killed, wounded or missing were already lost. It was a credit to all ranks that they were able to disengage without further heavy loss of life. Captain Mc Causland’s personal example of leadership in holding a key post throughout this dangerous phase of the withdrawal was later recognised with the award of the Distinguished Service Order.
As the Irish fell back the Germans followed up, creeping cautiously into street after street until they made contact with the Irish rearguard and then trying to slip across the railway to penetrate the streets behind them. Prodigious quantities of ammunition were expended sweeping the ends of streets with fire in an attempt to prevent German infiltration.
In a garage to the side of the railway line Lieutenant H R Grace of the Royal Army Medical Corps had set up his Regimental Aid Post (RAP) and was tending a steady stream of wounded with the assistance of Father Julian Stoner, the Chaplain. Inside the dimly lit garage the noise of battle roared incessantly, the heavy thud of exploding shells seeming to creep closer every second. Father Stoner, poking his head out into the daylight to see what was happening, expected to see the streets littered with corpses but the only man he saw was Lieutenant Patrick Davison standing behind a wall with a revolver in his hand. The din of rifle and machine-gun fire indicated that there were hundreds of men, both Irish Guards and Germans, all around him but Father Stoner saw no other living soul; they were too well hidden.
During the two hours or so that the Guards made their stand astride the light railway they were fighting almost continuously, so much so that when Lieutenant Colonel Haydon ordered a further retirement towards the docks at around 1.00pm, and the Irish began to fall back once more towards the quays, some of the Bren guns had to be left behind as the barrels had warped due to the heat or they had become clogged with dirt. They moved off in a long column down a ‘fairly important street’ with the head and tail protected by Bren guns and anti-tank rifles. Using the line of the railway as a target the Germans then began to shell the surrounding streets and the Irish scuttled into the houses on either side of their line of retirement to prevent unnecessary casualties. Bren gunners and men armed with Boys anti-tank rifles sealed off the roads in which the companies were sheltering. Officers and NCOs sheltered in the doorways ready to bring the men out as soon as the ‘all clear’ order was given but almost as soon as it had started the shelling ceased. Before the men could move on they heard, in the deathly silence which followed the shelling, the ominous rattle of tank tracks moving slowly towards them along the cobbled streets. With hearts in their mouths the men watched as five German tanks lumbered slowly towards them preceded by a man in civilian clothes gesticulating wildly and proclaiming that the tanks were French. The man and the three leading tanks continued down the hill but two remained in the street; one of them outside a house in which a sergeant and his section were sheltering and the other outside the house next door being used by staff of Battalion HQ. Major D J L Fitzgerald’s History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War records what happened next as the guardsmen lay crouched on the floor inside the houses and stole anxious glances into the street.
‘The sergeant was wondering what he could do, when a civilian walked in the back door. The stranger quickly unbuttoned his mackintosh to show a French uniform, pointed to the front door and said “Francais”. The sergeant opened the door cautiously to have a look at the tank which was noisily turning around. The “French” officer fled out of the back door, and ’taking time from him’ the section flung themselves on their faces just as the tanks shots rocketed down the passage.’
Next door, Lieutenant J Marnon the Signals Officer, was fretting as he knew he had left a motorcycle propped up against the wall outside but the tank did little more than spray a window or doorway with machine-gun fire every now and then. The Irish felt trapped. They were, in the words of Lieutenant Colonel Haydon ‘…in the most difficult and perilous situation.’ How long would the tanks wait? Would the Germans start to search the houses? The minutes dragged by but within a quarter of an hour all questions were answered when the three tanks that had gone down the hill returned to join the two parked in the street and all five withdrew once more the way they had come. Haydon could not now be certain that the way to the quay was clear. More tanks may have moved down other streets whilst the battalion had been trapped inside the houses and so he sent a patrol down towards the quay to make sure. The patrol reached its destination and met Lieutenant Sir John Reynolds who was the battalion liaison officer attached to 20 Guards Brigade. He told them that there had been no sign of German tanks in the vicinity of the dockside. Whilst the patrol was away Lieutenant J D Hornung the intelligence officer, saw two ’very small’ tanks sweep up the street through the battalion area. A guardsman managed to get off quick a shot with an anti-tank rifle and scored a direct hit on the rear of one of the tanks, but as small as the tank was the shot appeared to make ‘no impression whatsoever.’
Troops of 2 Panzer Division move cautiously down a suburban street. Courtesy Herr Fritz Steinzer
It was by now around 3pm and at Brigade HQ Brigadier Fox-Pitt thought he perceived a distinct lull in the firing. It seemed possible that the Germans had withdrawn from their forward positions and an officer sent out towards the Haute Ville found that the Germans had indeed withdrawn, a move which aroused suspicion on the part of the Brigadier in view of German persistence during the morning’s fighting. The entry in Guderian’s XIX Korps War Diary for 14.45 hours goes some way to explaining the reasoning behind the German pause. Guderian and his staff were under the impression that,
‘… in and around Boulogne the enemy is fighting tenaciously for every inch of ground in order to prevent the harbour from falling into German hands. Luftwaffe attacks on warships and transports lying off Boulogne are inadequate: it is not clear whether the latter are engaged in embarkation or disembarkation. 2nd Arrmoured Division’s attack therefore only progresses slowly.’
The battle was not going as smoothly as the Germans had planned and amongst the men on the ground there was a whiff of uncertainty and confusion in the air.
‘The Command knows the difficulty of the task. A coup de main by the right Combat Group [Vaerst] does not succeed until the second attempt. Enemy air attack at Mont Lambert claims victims. Cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats, altogether eight warships outside the harbour, again and again lay well-aimed fire on the attackers. At Wimereux, le Portel and at the aerodrome south of Boulogne, English troops are disembarking according to reports from reconnaissance planes. Hostile tank forces are reported marching from Calais to Boulogne, from Bazinhem marching enemy columns are approaching. Again and again units are to be detached to parry them off. In vain the artillery tries to combat the destroyers at sea. The range (of the artillery) does not suffice. The absence of III Rifle Battalion still waiting for relief on the Somme sector, becomes even more conspicuous. About 16.00 hours [German time] the attack breaks down under the well-aimed fire of the destroyers. Last night we could have done without your pleasure but now-come on comrades of the Luftwaffe.’6 Oberleutnant Dietz.
A flotilla of Allied warships were still lying off Boulogne, several of the World War One vintage ‘V and W’ Class destroyers like HMS Vimy and HMS Whitshed were amongst them, as was L’Orage and several more French ships, described by Don Harris aboard the Vimy as ’the most modern of the world’s destroyers.’ Guderian requested an attack on the harbour to disrupt the movement of ships in and out of the port and so put an end to any threat of landing further fighting units. The Luftwaffe did not respond in force immediately to Guderian’s request but nevertheless sporadic raids by Stukas on the harbour area were a constant threat.
Uncertain of the Germans’ next move Fox-Pitt used the lull to send his own message to his battalions. Still waiting for news from his own patrol as to whether the streets were clear of German armour, Lieutenant Colonel Haydon was unsure as to whether his battalion was to be evacuated or not but a dispatch rider who arrived some minutes later seemed to provide a glimmer of hope. The message, timed at 15.05 hours, was sent as ‘written’ from Brigade HQ to both 2 Irish and 2 Welsh Guards.
HMS Whitshed.
‘20 Gds Bde and details will embark as under as accommodation arises STOP All AMPC and non combatant units in WITSHED (sic) and non combatant and stragglers not under comd Bns as accommodation becomes available STOP 2 Irish and 2 Welsh Gds will hold bridgehead as at present STOP These two Bns will withdraw under direct orders of Brigadier in order 2 Welsh 2 Irish.’7
As soon as the patrol came back with word that the quaysides on the west of the harbour were clear, Lieutenant Colonel Haydon issued orders for the final move to the docks. Led by an advance guard ready to drop Brens and anti-tank rifles at any side roads which might have to be held, and with a rear-guard protecting its back, the battalion moved off. Sergeant William Gilchrist was one of the men who had been protecting the battalion’s ’tail’ during the withdrawal most of the afternoon. With a small party of men he had held a post at a street corner with an anti-tank rifle for the better part of two hours under heavy machine-gun fire. On another street corner not far away Lance Corporal Ivan Burke was also part of the rearguard. He had succeeded in holding off the Germans by operating both a Bren gun and an anti-tank rifle until he had collapsed, partly due to exhaustion and partly due to concussion from a shell landing close by. Both men would later receive recognition for their actions during the bitter street fighting that day; Gilchrist with the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Burke the Military Medal.
It took the battalion the best part of an hour to move the last 800 metres or so down to the quayside due to a diversion to avoid sniping from an upstairs window in a side street. When they finally reached the area on the western quays of the Bassin Napoléon at around 4pm the Irish barricaded all the approach roads with vehicles and barrels and set up posts to cover them with automatic weapons whilst the majority took cover inside sheds and warehouses. Some of the men headed for a quayside café but Drill-Sergeant Kelly was already there standing sentinel over the rows of coloured bottles behind the bar. According to Kelly the liquid inside the bottles was ‘poisoned’ and none of the men dared touched a drop. A little later, however, the battalion was ordered out of the sheds and warehouses to defend the roads into the harbour from the west and south. The hope of evacuation for 20 Brigade appeared to be evaporating. Now, with all the surrounding high ground in German hands, there was little else that Brigadier Fox-Pitt could do but hold the port and buy precious time for the Royal Navy as it began the hazardous task of evacuating the many hundreds of civilian evacuees, BEF wounded and stragglers, non combatants and raw French, Belgian and Dutch soldiery from under the noses of the advancing Germans. The harbour area had been under accurate, close range artillery and mortar fire for some time and now, despite the lull at around 3 pm, small arms fire was beginning to rake the sheds and warehouses in the vicinity of the fish market and along the quays around the Bassin Napoléon as German infantry seeped into the surrounding streets. Just beyond the breakwaters HMS Whitshed was steaming towards the harbour and making ready to come alongside.