1954 Cover of ‘Underground from Posen‘
Michael Duncan MC (Service No. 65656) was born on 4th April 1911 in Skipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire. He worked as an advertising manager. He was a Lieutenant (later acting Lt Colonel) in the Territorial Army, 4th Battalion Ox & Bucks Light Infantry attached to the BEF.
In late May 1940, at the age of 29 years, he was part of 145 Brigade defending the Cassel garrison.
Duncan was captured at Watou on 30th May 1940, and along with many of the 145 Brigade officers, was POW at Stalag VIIC Laufen. In March 1941 he was transferred to Stalag XXID (Posen) and from Posen was transferred to Oflag VB (Biberach) in June 1941.
On 13 September 1941, he escaped from Oflag VB Biberach by a tunnel and managed a ‘home run‘ escape to the border town of Schleitheim, Switzerland; a distance of about about 60 miles. Interestingly, the group of escapers included Capt Harold Westley of 140 Rgt RA. Westley was recaptured and spent the remainder of the war in captivity [see ‘Captivity: Officers of the Regiment’].
Duncan wrote an account of his experiences at Cassel, subsequent captivity and escape in a book entitled ‘Underground from Posen‘ first published in 1954. The book is dedicated to ‘All those whose story this is‘ and includes a foreword by Brigadier Nigel Somerset (see ‘In Dunkirk’s Grim Days‘ on this site).
I’ve reproduced the chapters relevant to the battle at Cassel and Michael Duncan’s early captivity here:
Lt Col Michael Duncan MC
CHAPTER II ‘THE BATTLE OPENS‘
‘…THERE had, for a long time, been rumours of the enemy behind us and the wireless spoke of small pockets of enemy tanks loose in France which would soon be mopped up, but there was no hint of anything worse. So, this continual withdrawal confused and infuriated the troops who had always come out on top in any clashes that they had had with the enemy and who felt ready to deal with anything that the enemy might bring against them.
Only one day was spent in the Gort Line, a lovely spring day that would have been completely peaceful had it not been for intermittent shelling and the incessant drone of hundreds of enemy planes high in the blue sky. Even these did not really disturb the peace: the shelling was only a minor irritation, and the humming of the planes could so easily be mistaken for the buzzing of bees in an English country garden.
All that day we sat in our bunkers, dozing or daydreaming, until the evening when still again came the order to withdraw. This time, though, we were withdrawing to reserve in the little French town of Nomain and, as we left our positions, a regiment of Spahis moved up to take over the line and it looked as though a stand were really to be made at last. Any satisfaction that we may have felt at this was, however, destined to be short-lived for as soon as we arrived in Nomain, the situation was made clear to us.
The Germans, we were told, had reached the Channel ports in strength; Calais was in imminent danger of falling and the battalion was to be taken in lorries to help in its defence while the rest of the B.E.F. was being concentrated round Dunkirk.
This was stunning news, received by the troops in incredulous silence until a rumour, starting from nowhere but spreading like wildfire, suggested that the B.E.F. was going home. Then their spirits rose, and it was considered a most amusing joke when the corporal in charge of the lorries that were to carry “A” Company reported that he had come to take them to Cassel.
“I’ve never heard it pronounced like that before,” said the officer to whom he reported.
“Pardon, sir?” “It’s pronounced Calais, Corporal, not Cassel. Cassel’s in Germany,” explained the officer erroneously.
……”Sorry, sir, but my orders are to take you to Cassel.”
The officer was tired and began to get irritated by the stubbornness of the man: “Look at your orders again, you idiot, and see how it’s spelt,” he said. “C.A.L.A.I.S doesn’t spell Cassel.”
The corporal was long-suffering and well disciplined. He knew quite well what his orders were, but obediently he took them out.
“It’s spelt C.A.S.S.E.L here, sir,” he said.
CHAPTER III ‘THE FORGOTTEN LAST STAND‘
As darkness fell, we climbed into the lorries and set off in convoy on the road to Lille. Maps were scarce in those days and most of us had only the haziest notion where Cassel was, anyway, so that we had to rely almost entirely on the leader of the convoy and the intelligence of our R.A.S.C. drivers. The route was through Lille, Armentières and Bailleul, all of which were burning from recent bombing raids and in all of which the main streets were blocked by fallen masonry, so that frequent detours were necessary.
Five times during the night we lost our way-an unnerving experience, as we had no idea where the enemy were and any deviation from the route might well land us amongst them. One feels uncomfortably “sitting-duck” when packed tight in a three-ton lorry with no view of what is going on and with only one way out, over the tailboard. Lights were, of course, prohibited but, when travelling in convoy, there are always smells and noises that disclose the presence of other vehicles and progress varies between long halts, when you wonder what on earth is happening, and bursts of fantastic speed, when you wish it weren’t.
For an hour or two before dawn all these indications were missing and, as daylight came, we found that, besides ourselves, there was only one other lorry trundling along a narrow country lane. The driver thought that he couldn’t be far from Cassel but wasn’t sure that he was on the right road-and he had no map. The second driver had a map but as neither of them had much idea where we were and as there were no obvious landmarks it didn’t help very much. Eventually we did find our way into Cassel where most of the lorries had already arrived, but a number were still missing.
Cassel is, or was, an attractive little town on a hill about thirty kilometres from Dunkirk and commanding extensive views in every direction. Apart from being an excellent defensive position it also, and herein lay its chief importance, commanded not only the main road and rail approaches to Dunkirk from the south but also one of the best and most likely approaches from Calais. Consequently, it sat astride some of the most important lines of advance of the enemy in any attack that they might make on Dunkirk. On that lovely May morning it was a gruesome sight. It had been bombed during the night and, when we arrived, casualties, both human and animal, were still lying about the roads and fields. As we climbed stiffly from our lorries I was met by an orderly. “Is the Company Commander here, sir?” he asked. “No. Hasn’t he arrived yet? He’s not with us.” “The Commanding Officer wants all Company Commanders immediately in the small square at the top of the road.” “All right. I’ll go.”
As soon as we were all assembled the Commanding Officer started to give orders in the time-honoured formula.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said,
“The general situation is this. Calais has been reinforced from England but, even so, isn’t expected to hold out much longer. The rest of the B.E.F. is concentrating in and around Dunkirk. 48th Division has been given the task of holding a line of strong points behind which the defences of Dunkirk are being prepared and through which all remaining units of the B.E.F. will be withdrawn. The task of 145 Brigade is to hold the line from a blockhouse two miles out on the Dunkirk Road to our right to Hazebrouck, on the left, both inclusive.”
He then described briefly the lie of the land.
“About thirty kilometres to the north, over there,” he said, “is Dunkirk. That hill to your right is the Mont des Recollets.
Over there,” he continued, pointing south-east, “you can just see the town of Hazebrouck, about nine miles away, and behind those woods to the south-west is St. Omer.
“Now ‘Information’. About the enemy we have at present very little. His tanks have been seen in the neighbourhood and we can expect him here at any moment and from almost any direction, so there’s no time to lose.
“Own troops. Hazebrouck is being held by the 1st Bucks and Cassel is divided about equally between us and the 2nd Glosters. They hold the north-west part of the town, and we hold the south-east.The Mont des Recollets is being held by the Cavalry Brigade. As the main threat is expected to come from tanks, all guns, including the field guns, will be sited for anti-tank roles so you’ll get little or no ordinary artillery support.”
The Colonel then gave out details of his plan, allocated sectors to each of the companies, gave the usual administrative information and ended: “… and this time there will be no pulling out. The safety of the B.E.F. depends on us. Cassel will be held till the last man and the last round and after, if necessary.” It all sounded simple-orders are meant to sound that way- but the position was far from happy. The brigade, consisting of two Territorial battalions of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry-the 4th Oxfordshire and the 1st Bucks and one Regular battalion-the 2nd Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment had to hold indefinitely a front of eleven miles including two towns and numerous villages. That would be a formidable task for any brigade at full strength, but we were sadly battered. We had been in contact with the enemy more or less continuously since moving up to the front a fortnight before and, during that time, we had carried out a fighting retreat-“withdrawal” is the technical term -the British Army never retreats- across half Belgium.
We were also far below strength as, apart from normal battle casualties, in the bombing near Tournai the Glosters had lost a hundred and thirty men and the Oxfords nearly a hundred, so that it was a tired, hungry and depleted force that took on this formidable task. Moreover, considerable numbers had still not arrived from Nomain and we had no means of knowing what had happened to them or if they would eventually turn up. Certainly, we had two regiments of light tanks with us but, while they were excellent for reconnaissance and against infantry, they were no match for the much heavier enemy tanks that were coming against us.
Brigadier Somerset, who commanded this brigade, summed up the situation when, in recording a meeting between himself and Brigadier Hamilton commanding 144 Brigade, he wrote:
“It wasn’t much object in making a very co-ordinated plan as the distances were too great. My right was the Pill Box and their left was the (5th) Glosters at (Zer)Mezeele. It was obvious to us that if the Germans attacked between the various defended villages there was nothing to stop them, but to try at this stage to put up defences between the villages was out of the question and to scatter troops over the excellent tank country would also be quite valueless. The only thing to hope for was that the enemy would not attack in great strength and that he would be delayed by the strongly fortified and tank-proof localities.”
Still, with the enemy already in the neighbourhood, there was no time to lose.
“A” Company had been allotted a sector of nearly half a mile and so far, only twenty men had arrived with which to hold it so that it was a relief when the remaining lorries started to find their way in and, with them, the rest of the company.
At once we started to dig and when, by noon, all was done the men settled into their pits to rest and wait for their midday meal-their first since the previous afternoon. When eventually it did arrive, they came nearer to utter dejection than I had ever seen them.
‘Ere, what’s this? ‘Ors Dooves?” asked the first man angrily as he was handed a slice of fried meat loaf, a mug of tea and a few biscuits.
“Come orf it, Cobber. Where’s the rest?”
It was no meal to satisfy hungry men after a morning’s hard digging, but it was all there was. The supply system had almost completely broken down and food was already becoming very scarce. Nor were tempers improved when a reorganisation of the defences made it necessary to leave the pits that they had dug with so much labour and dig completely new ones in a fresh position half a mile to the east. This time the work was much slower as the men were desperately tired. Few of them had been able to get any sleep during the drive from Nomain and there had been no chance of rest since, so that it was after dark before the defences were complete and they could sink down exhausted into their pits.
Even so, it was not for long as the nights were short and dawn “stand-to” came almost before they had a chance to close their eyes. Overhead numbers of enemy bombers and reconnaissance planes passed completely unmolested. We had heard frequently on the wireless, before the batteries died on us, of the wonderful work that the R.A.F. was doing but we could not help wishing that they would do a bit of it in our area for a change. We did not exactly develop an inferiority complex from seeing none but enemy planes, but the general effect was undeniably depressing.
There was still no imminent threat from the enemy ground troops, however, and most of the morning was devoted to corpse disposal. The town had been evacuated, except for a few stubborn individuals who hid in cellars, almost immediately after our arrival and the corpses had been left where they lay. We had been too busy to attend to them but now, after a day in the hot sun, they were declining to be ignored much longer and were likely to become a danger so that something had to be done. The humans had, of course, already been taken to the cemetery where they were buried by the Pioneer Platoon and the padre, but the cattle and horses, of which there were too many to bury, were dragged to a safe distance where it was hoped that they would play on our side by up- setting the stomachs of at least a few of the more impressionable Germans.
When I got back at midday to Company Headquarters in a bomb-shattered farm I was met by Coulston, the Company messman.
“Luncheon is served, sir,” he said in, apart from his grin, the best butlerish manner. “Bit high-falutin’ this morning, Coulston. What have we got? Fricassee of rats’ tail?”
Coulston stood aside to let me enter and grinned again at my amazement. The room was a shambles, but in the middle of it was a table spread with a spotless white cloth and laid with shining silver and glittering glass. In the centre stood two bottles of excellent champagne. It was completely incongruous but very pleasant.
Unfortunately we were given no time in which to enjoy it. Already our light tanks had been in contact on a number of occasions with considerably heavier enemy tanks near the Forêt de Clairmarais, six miles south-west of Cassel and close to St. Omer. It now seemed certain that this would be the direction from which the main assault on Cassel would come and, to form an outpost line to break up the attack, the Glosters were ordered to send a company to occupy the village of Zuytpeene, two miles west of Cassel, while the Oxfords sent one to occupy Bavinchove, a mile and a half south-west.
To complete the all-round defence of the area the Glosters were further ordered to send a platoon to occupy the block- house on the Dunkirk Road and the Oxfords to send another company to hold the Mont des Recollets, a small but steep hill half a mile to the east. These changes meant another complete reorganisation of the defences of Cassel itself and still more digging for the hard-pressed men. Nor was there much time. Enemy tanks were now reported in the direction of the Forêt de Nieppe, four miles south of Hazebrouck, which was therefore in imminent danger from both the south and west, whilst every patrol that went out from Cassel bumped into heavy enemy resistance and came back fewer in number. It seemed certain that the attack would come the following morning. All that afternoon and far into the night the men hacked weapon pits out of the hard, sun-baked ground, loop-holed walls and shored up buildings until, by dawn of May 27th, the defences were as complete as it was possible to make them.
As dawn broke with the men, weary but tense, standing-to in their weapon pits, an enemy reconnaissance plane appeared and drew a swastika in black smoke over the centre of the town. This was evidently the signal for the battle to commence for immediately the enemy batteries opened up with a tremendous bombardment. After a time, bombers appeared too to take a hand in this completely one-sided game while backwards and forwards flew the reconnaissance plane, watching and directing the artillery fire. We also suspected that, amongst the civilians hiding in the cellars, were some fifth columnists, since otherwise it was hard to explain the uncanny accuracy with which every headquarters in Cassel was shelled from the start.
At 7.30 am, under cover of this bombardment, enemy armoured columns, supported by infantry, moved out from the direction of St. Omer towards Cassel whilst others advanced in the direction of Hazebrouck. By eight o’clock all the outposts, except for the blockhouse, were heavily engaged by vastly superior and heavily armoured enemy forces. The troop of Royal Artillery defending Hondeghem reported tanks breaking into their positions, and by ten o’clock they were silent, so that the main road from Cassel to Hazebrouck was cut, and from then on, the two places fought as separate entities.
As Pat, the Company Commander, and I stood watching for signs of the enemy we saw, winding out along the road from St. Omer towards Bavinchove, a long column of enemy tanks preceded by motor cyclists and armoured cars and followed by infantry in armoured half-tracks.
“What are those fools of gunners doing?” stormed Pat. “Can’t they see a sitting target? Go and tell the O.P. in the house next door to wake up while I send a message to the Colonel”
When I reached the observation post I found the gunnery officer already watching the approaching enemy through his glasses.
“What can you do about it?” I asked, going towards the window for another look. “Nothing, dammit. For God’s sake keep away from that damned window. What the hell d’you think I’m sitting back here for? There’s nothing we can do. All the guns are on fixed anti-tank roles, and we haven’t any we could range on to them in time. What about your mortars?”
“Hopeless. We’ve only got two, as you know. Actually, they’re both under command of the Company at the moment but they haven’t the range. How far would you say they are?” “About four thousand yards.” he said.
“That’s about what I thought, and the extreme range of the mortars is fifteen hundred.”
So, helplessly, we watched them wend their relentless towards Cassel.
Suddenly the head of the column broke, as if splintered, with pieces flying in every direction as they came under fire from the defenders of Bavinchove. For a while there was a lull as if orders were being given and then methodically, inexorably, the encircling movement began. From our grandstand on the hill, we could watch every move of the battle as “D” Company of the 4th Oxfords, about ninety strong, fought to hold back that column of tanks, armoured cars and infantry and at last, having done its job of breaking up the attack, struggled back into Cassel.
At Zuytpeene, the company of the and Glosters, only sixty strong, was attacked by a strong force of tanks supported by mortars and infantry. Doggedly they held their positions until by noon they were entirely surrounded with no hope of help from outside. To have sent a strong relieving force from Cassel would have left a large gap in the defences of the town itself and such forces as could be spared were too weak to be able to break through the encircling enemy.
All that afternoon, the defenders of Zuytpeene fought on against tremendous odds, being slowly but relentlessly driven back until, towards evening, the survivors gathered for a final stand in the cellars of the building that had been Company Headquarters. There they held out until seven o’clock when, with the building burning above them and completely outnumbered by the enemy who were throwing grenades into the cellar, further resistance became impossible and those that were left surrendered.
At Hazebrouck a similar situation developed. Almost from the start the 1st Bucks had been isolated from Cassel by the tank attack on Hondeghem, but it was at 9.30 a.m. that, after an initial bombardment, the attack started on the town itself.
By ten o’clock large numbers of tanks had come up from the south and swung east and west, cutting up the widely spaced defenders into small groups and playing havoc with the defences. All attempts to regroup were frustrated by the troops being caught in the streets either by tanks or shellfire as soon as they moved. All that day, under continual bombardment and with enemy tanks commanding most of the streets, they fought to hold their positions, and it was not until night fell that those who left could be collected into the convent which had been prepared as a “keep” for the last stand of the defence.
To appreciate fully the courage of these men it should be remembered that they were a Territorial battalion and that, at that stage of the war, even Regular battalions had had little practical experience of street fighting one of the most difficult arts of war-and Territorial battalions virtually none. Moreover at that time the medium and heavy tank was more or less supreme on the battlefield: certainly they were vulnerable to some artillery and anti-tank gun fire but the only defence against them that the infantryman had was a few- desperately few-anti-tank mines and the Boyes rifle, heavy, cumbersome, making an explosion like the crack of doom every time it was fired, but of doubtful efficiency against any but very light tanks.
The blockhouse [Le Pequel] on the Dunkirk Road, defended by about twenty-five men of the 2nd Glosters, was not attacked until the evening, but it was then immediately surrounded and a road block was erected by the enemy between it and Cassel, cutting it off from any hope of assistance. The defence of this blockhouse, carried out as it was by such a small body of men under the command of a young lieutenant [Cresswell], was, perhaps, the most remarkable of all. For four whole days, with no word from the outside world and with no knowledge of what was happening except in their own immediate vicinity, they held out against everything that the enemy could bring against them: on one occasion faggots were brought up in an attempt to burn them out with the only result that the defenders brewed themselves some hot tea.
It was not until the evening of May 30th that, exhausted, short of food and ammunition and with many casualties, they finally surrendered.
Meanwhile the main weight of the initial attack against Cassel itself had shifted in our direction. Heavy tanks, followed by infantry, came up under cover of the woods-which, in many cases, came to within thirty yards of our positions and, firing everything they had, tried to force their way on to the col joining Cassel to the Mont des Recollets [see battle at Ch Masson]. These tanks were handled with great boldness and, though many were knocked out, a few succeeded in penetrating the defences but, as their supporting infantry could not break through to join them, they withdrew again without causing much damage.
As the day wore on the points of attack became more numerous, but the tanks also became more cautious, firing from “hull-down” positions where it was difficult to get at them and trying to get their infantry forward. Against our fire, however, the infantry, at least on our front, did not seem too keen to be got forward and, though they were persistent in their attacks, there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
It may be that they had had a soft job, up to that time, motoring along comfortably behind the all-conquering tanks and now that they had to work for their living, they did not much like it. Certainly, sitting in lorries had not improved their figures or their fieldcraft and it was comforting to find that at least one section of the invincible German Army was no better than anyone else when it came down to the basic business of crawling on its tummy under fire. If our shooting was at all accurate there must have been a lot of those Germans who would not want to sit down for many a week, but, for all that, they were dangerous from their sheer persistence and the fire from their tanks was devastatingly accurate.
All day long the attacks went on, covered by a more or less continuous bombardment of the town by artillery, mortars and machine guns, whilst overhead the planes droned incessantly. Towards evening the attacks died down and by nightfall even the bombardment ceased so that there was an almost uncanny silence broken only by the crackling of flames from the many burning buildings in the town.
Scattered about the surrounding countryside were the wrecks of enemy tanks: the exact number destroyed that day was never definitely established but at Cassel it was not less than thirty and Hazebrouck also accounted for several-a tribute to the staunchness and good shooting of both the anti- tank and field gunners without whom the defences must surely have been overrun. They had been in a far from enviable position.
The reconnaissance plane overhead, which someone had most inaptly christened “our guardian angel”, continually spotted and reported back the positions of the guns so that, almost within seconds of firing, they became the centre of attention from enemy batteries. Casualties both in men and guns were high and, by the time the action ended, there were few guns left that would fire.
That night it rained heavily, which helped to put out some of the fires in Cassel but otherwise did nothing to improve conditions for the men crouching in their slit trenches or peering out into the darkness, expecting the attacks to be resumed at any moment. The woods to our front, too, seemed filled with menace and, in the blackness of the night, to be creeping, silently, stealthily nearer as the woods of Birnam crept up on Dunsinane.
The night, however, was peaceful enough-probably the enemy still had insufficient infantry forward to risk a night attack-and at long last dawn broke, quiet and lovely: quiet, that is, except for the, by now, almost unnoticed background noises of aircraft as they passed and repassed on their way. to and from Dunkirk. Even the tangy smell of burnt cordite and bursting explosive, with which the whole town had been impregnated the night before, had been washed away, leaving only the delicious scents of an early summer morning after rain. Such utter peace can only be obtained by comparison, and it could not last.
Very soon, in the south-east, the rumble of distant gunfire told us that the attack was being renewed against the hard-pressed defenders of Hazebrouck. From five o’clock onwards, under cover of heavy bombardment, the enemy worked their way forward.
By Ten [a.m.], a few infantry had forced their way into the convent garden through a hole in the wall, but were quickly thrown out again. By eleven, tanks on both sides of the convent were firing at point- blank range while snipers in neighbouring buildings were taking an added toll of the defenders. The tanks were driven off with anti-tank rifles but, almost immediately, returned to the attack. Again, they were repulsed, one being set on fire, and this time they withdrew, evidently to decide on fresh tactics. Despite the weight of his attack the enemy was making no progress. Tanks, although they can cause a great deal of material damage, have the disadvantage that they cannot, normally, occupy buildings and, against the determined resistance of the defence, the infantry were getting nowhere.
So, they resorted once more to shelling and mortaring in the hopes of destroying the building and driving the garrison into the open. All the afternoon they kept at it, with only an hour’s respite, and, at 4.30 p.m., still under cover of very heavy shelling, the tanks came in again. Still, they were held off, one more being destroyed, but by now the top floor of the building was firmly alight and had to be abandoned. A quarter of an hour later the first floor also had to be evacuated and in the official report of the action is the cryptic entry “No more L.M.G. or rifle ammunition”.
At last, the decision had to be taken to evacuate the building altogether. Scarcely were the fighting troops clear, and before any action could be taken to move the hundred wounded who were lying in the cellars, the whole building collapsed, burying the wounded under the rubble. About seventy-five were subsequently rescued. After that the end came quickly. The garrison tried to break out but was stopped by enemy machine-guns covering all the surrounding streets. Again, the tanks attacked, closely followed by infantry who, this time, forced their way into the garden and the defenders, utterly exhausted, without ammunition, their Commanding Officer and Adjutant killed and with no hope of escape or rescue, could do nothing but surrender.
At Cassel the day was, by comparison, quiet. The bombardment by artillery and mortars was kept up more or less incessantly but, apart from a few light probing attacks that were easily repulsed, the enemy made no serious move against the town. All around, however, they could be seen digging in and their armour was constantly on the move just out of effective range. Patrols of light tanks and carriers sent out from Cassel all came back with the same news: enemy tanks were all round the town. All the villages, Steenvoorde, St. Sylvestre, Winnezeele and many others were occupied.
It looked as though the encirclement was complete, but one road must still have been open as an officer arrived during the morning to beg, for the defence of Dunkirk itself, some anti-tank guns which obviously could not be spared.
A later wireless message also demanded the immediate despatch to Dunkirk of the whole Cavalry Brigade. It seemed as if the Higher Command had decided to hand us over, defenceless, to the enemy. Without our guns we were entirely at the mercy of the tanks. So many had already been put out of action that the loss of even a few more might well be disastrous and, as we had no aircraft, the withdrawal of the Cavalry Brigade would leave us practically blind for the light tanks were our “eyes”. Either, it seemed, the whole garrison should be withdrawn, or it should be left intact.
Eventually a compromise was reached by sending back what was left of one of the Light Tank Regiments and one of the Field Regiments of Artillery. This force, contrary to all expectations, just succeeded in fighting its way through but, from then on, Cassel was in a state of siege.
None of this was, of course, known to the troops, who were still in great heart and had no thought either of escape or surrender. They were enormously pleased with their performance of the previous day and were convinced that they could hold their positions indefinitely. It was remarkable how resilient the men were. Three weeks before most of them had never fired a shot in anger. Now they were hardened campaigners, joking at death and putting up with hunger, hardship and danger all as a matter of course. During that morning Pierre Digeon-otherwise known as “Pigeon” our French Liaison Officer, came to Company Headquarters. “Would you like some beer?” he asked.
“What silly questions some people ask. How much have you got?”
“I haven’t got any, but I know where to get some.”
So, we set off across the square and came to a cellar in which some thirty people of both sexes and all ages were huddled. The atmosphere was awful, and the only light came from a few smoky candles.
Pigeon had clearly been there before. Going up to a man who looked a typical innkeeper- which, in fact, he was he said: “We want a crate of beer.”
Without a word the man lifted a crate of two dozen bottles from a stack and gestured to us to take it away.
“How much?” I asked.
“Nothing. You can have the beer but please bring back the crate and empty bottles” which, under the circumstances, seemed rather pathetic.
As we carried the crate between us, I noticed “our guardian angel” diving at us in a far from protective way and was keen to take shelter in the nearest doorway. Pignon, however, kept steadily on so that, short of dropping my end of the crate, there was nothing that I could do but follow.
“Not even a German would shoot a man taking home the beer,” announced Pigeon confidently even as a stream of bullets ripped into the cobbles ahead of us.
Pigeon looked mortally offended.
“Tonnerre!” he swore, “they’re even worse than I thought.”
“Perhaps he thought we were carrying ammunition,” I suggested.
“Not at all,” said Pigeon angrily.
“They just have no decency-filthy Boches” and, when the plane came round again, we both moved quickly to the nearest doorway.
When we got back to the ruin that was Company H.Q- we found, nailed to the door, a large notice BUSINESS AS USUAL DURING ALTERATIONS and inside was Robins, the completely irrepressible company clerk, busy cutting hair apparently without a care in the world. It seemed that nothing could get these men down.
To their commanders, however, the position was causing some anxiety. The men had already been far too long without sleep and on short rations and now the food situation was becoming acute. All the houses and shops had been cleared of everything eatable long ago, but it takes more than casual gleanings of that sort to feed two thousand men. Food had, in fact, almost run out although stews were still being concocted of the cooks alone knew what and one did not ask.
It was as well not to look at the food too closely: it all went down and tasted quite good. The mere fact that the troops got hot food at all was a triumph for the cooks, the flames of whose petrol cookers were constantly being put out by the concussion of bursting shells. Tea, the sine qua non of the British Army, was also getting scarce and so were certain types of ammunition-particularly mortar and anti-tank. The garrison’s resources were, in fact, dwindling and there was no means of replenishment. However high might be the optimism of the troops it was obvious to their commanders that the position was getting desperate.
Casualties, too, were mounting and the wounded could not be evacuated so that many died through lack of proper facilities to save them. Such a one was Driver Jackson of the Transport, six foot three in height, red-headed and a strong socialist, who, in quiet times, stood out strongly for his “rights” but who, in a tight corner, put his principles into practice by giving a helping hand to everyone. Tired of inactivity he appointed himself a carrier of ammunition for the three-inch mortars and when I saw him, at the height of a bombardment, he was grinning cheerfully as he trudged along, a case of mortar bombs in each hand.
“Happy, Jackson?” I asked.
He almost laughed. “It’s just what I thought a battle would be like, sir,” he said.
Next time I saw him he was being carried on a door and, because his legs were paralysed and he was too long for the door, he was holding them up with his hands to make it easier for the stretcher bearers. He was still grinning, but his grin was now a little twisted with pain for he had been shot through the stomach.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The mortars didn’t want me anymore,” he said, “so I went off to see if I could see any of the enemy. They saw me first,” he added ruefully.
A quick evacuation and operation might have saved him, but he died the next day and several others with him. During the afternoon, when there was a lull in the shelling we had a fresh entertainment in the form of a leaflet raid. The leaflets were very amateurish and consisted of a rough plan of the area, showing the town to be surrounded, and, in French and English: underneath the caption,
“British soldiers lay down your arms. You are surrounded and your generals have gone.”
Many were collected as souvenirs, but the total effect was summed up by the man who remarked;
“Just as we were running out of paper, too. How did they guess?”
The night, again, was quiet and, screened by constant patrols, we got more sleep than we had had for many nights- which was lucky: it was the last we were to have for a long time.
From dawn on May 29th, the enemy again opened an intense bombardment which caused tremendous destruction and a number of casualties. Under cover of this they launched fresh attacks, this time choosing the sector held by the Glosters as the main point of their assault. They had evidently made up their minds that we had delayed them long enough for the attacks were pressed home with great determination and, when the Glosters refused to yield an inch, they spread their front, seeking a weak spot until, at one time, attacks were again being made against all parts of the town.
Often the enemy came near to gaining a foothold, as when a party of them infiltrated through the woods almost into the heart of our sector and were only counterattack brave and prompt action of C.S.M. Bailey who, collecting from Company Headquarters a small party of clerks, signallers, cooks, anyone he could find, loaded them with as many grenades as they could carry and led them in a hectic bombing counter-attack which utterly routed the enemy.
Many such actions took place all round the perimeter and all were successful in preventing the enemy from penetrating the defences at a single point.
During the morning, while the battle was at its height, a despatch rider arrived, badly shaken and rather incoherent. It appeared that he had been sent off the previous day with an order that the whole of the Cassel garrison should withdraw to the Dunkirk perimeter that night but, as was to be expected, he had bumped into the enemy all along the route and had been unable to get through.
It says much for his courage and tenacity that he arrived at all.
Why the message was not sent at the same time as the one which ordered the despatch to Dunkirk of the guns and tanks and why, with the whole countryside crawling with enemy, the message was sent by despatch rider instead of by wireless was never definitely established, unless it were that, owing to some carelessness during a hurried departure, a number of codes had fallen into the hands of the enemy and the message was considered too secret to send in clear or in a compromised code.
Whatever the reason it landed us effectively “in the bag”, Had the message arrived, as it was meant to do, on May 28th, when much of the country was still only held by tank formations, it is likely that most of the garrison could have got through.
By May 29th, when the message did arrive, it was already too late. Even had it been possible to break off the battle, which it was not, no attempt could be made to leave Cassel during the hours of daylight, and, by nightfall, all the enemy tank units had been heavily reinforced with infantry so that the chances of even getting out of Cassel were small whilst those of reaching Dunkirk were hardly worth consideration.
Later a wireless message was received in a code that no one could understand and a request for clarification brought no reply nor could any answer to any further wireless signals be obtained. By seven o’clock in the evening the last of the attacks had been driven off and we settled down to making preparations for our departure.
It was clear that, to have any chance of escape, we must leave by stealth, abandoning all our heavy weapons and equipment. Orders were that we should destroy all equipment that we could not carry with us-virtually everything except our small arms-and, as we smashed with pick-axes the radiators and engines of our few remaining vehicles and rendered unserviceable the surviving guns and mortars, we felt the first bitterness of defeat; a bitterness the more poignant in that we were still the undoubted victors in the field.
We shared, too, something of the feelings of the condemned and “morituri te salutant” might well have been our motto, for few of us, I think, seriously expected to see another day. It was a solemn group of tired, grey-faced men that sat around in Company Headquarters waiting for the night. We were sitting, mostly on wine crates or on piles of bricks, in the vaulted cellar of the house. One end of the cellar had already been blown in by a nearby shell burst and the house above had been a ruin since the first day. The only light came from home-made tallow dips-dim and pungent. In one corner stood an old copper, its lid covered with rubble.
There were, from time to time, sudden jerky attempts at cheerful conversation but they were always dismal failures and only helped to accentuate the silence. Someone tried to play a mouth-organ but, after a few squeaky notes, he threw it away in disgust.
Most of us wrote letters which we sealed and put in our pockets-not with any hope or intention of posting them but because of some need to communicate with those dearest to us and perhaps with some vague idea that, if they were found after we had been killed, they would be sent off and might bring some comfort. But for the most part we sat or paced up and down until the tension became unbearable. The company clerk began to fidget with the old copper and eventually he succeeded in prising off the lid. His gasp drew everyone’s attention.
“What have you found, Robins? A snake?” asked the Company Sergeant-Major.
“Eggs. Hundreds of them.”
We all crowded round to look, thankful that the awful tension had been broken.
“Well, I’ll go to hell,” moaned the Quartermaster-Sergeant. “Enough for every man in the company to have had two for breakfast if we’d been going to have any breakfast.”
That hoard of pickled eggs looked like all the treasures of Aladdin’s cave, but it was already growing dusk, and it was too late to do anything with them. We had little stomach for food just then-especially raw pickled eggs.
“Come on, Robins lad, break ’em up,” said the C.S.M. “We’re not leaving them for those bastards.”
“I suppose it’s got to be done,” said Robins, stirring away with the copper stick with some relish, as he made a gigantic omelette.
“I hope they go good and rotten and some lousy Boche is given the job of cleaning them out.”
At last, thank God, it was dark, and the waiting was over.
Except for a few men left behind in various parts of the town to fire shots and make noises to deceive the enemy, the garrison assembled between Cassel and the Mont des Recollets and moved off into the night in single file, creeping through the woods and along hedgerows in the hopes of getting away undetected.
At first all went well, but the intense darkness of the night, though helping concealment, made it extremely difficult to keep touch and this, combined with the frequent obstacles that were encountered, soon caused the column to become split up into small parties each making its own way.
Each of these parties, at one time or another during the night, bumped into detachments of the enemy and, all around, short, sharp skirmishes could be heard as they fought their way clear.
When dawn came few, if any, of the parties were more than half way to Dunkirk and it was not long before each was located by the enemy and rapidly disposed of.
The party with which I was travelling was lucky during the night in that we only bumped into one machine-gun post from which we got clear with only two casualties, but, as dawn broke, we found ourselves surrounded by a large German column of all arms, including a number of tanks, armoured troop carriers and supporting weapons.
The battle which followed was sharp but could have only one end. We were caught in the open, we had no defence whatever against tanks or armoured vehicles of any kind and we had not slept for twenty-four hours. Such ammunition as we had we fired and, when it was finished, we waited for the enemy to collect us.
So ended the defence of Cassel and the German tide, that had been held in check by this tiny army, flowed on towards Dunkirk, but too late now to do much more damage. The names of Cassel and Hazebrouck are, I believe, mentioned in no official record of the war and yet their defence must surely have contributed as much as, perhaps even more than, the defence of Calais to the successful evacuation of the B.E.F. from Dunkirk.
To the men who fought there the last and only-tribute came from their enemies. In a German broadcast on June 3rd, 1940, describing the capture of Cassel and Hazebrouck, the announcer said:
“We must recognize that the British fighters were magnificent. We must assume that these were their crack regiments. Each soldier was of marvellous physique and full of fighting spirit. At Hazebrouck our soldiers had to storm each house separately. The ‘castle’ (convent) took an extra day to capture. Our men found nothing in it but a heap of ruins.”