3 First Steps

p. 43 Gregory Blaxland, Destination Dunkirk: The Story of Gort’s Army (1973), p. 58 gives an overall total of 394,165 men in the BEF, 237,319 of which came under GHQ, 120,000 in the fighting divisions. Of the remaining 156,846 men, 18,537 were in the three labour divisions. Transport records in WO 277/17 Appendix C show a net 288,007 men landed in France between September 1939 and 1940 (arrivals less departures). My number for front line troops is based upon a theoretical Infantry Division establishment of 13,863 men in 1939 (Lieutenant-Colonel H.F. Joslen, Orders of Battle United Kingdom and Colonial Formations and Units in the Second World War, 1939–45 (1960), Vol. I, p 131); to this need to be added the Royal Tank Regiment and Cavalry regiments at Corps and Army level, but these would be offset by troops on leave. For comparison, the establishment strength of the six infantry and one cavalry division in the initial BEF in 1914 was around 118,000.

p. 45 For the retention of ‘bombers’ see Stephen Bull and Gordon L Rottman, Infantry Tactics of the Second World War (2008), p.40, and Anthony Farrar Hockley Infantry Tactics 1939–45 (1976), p. 20.

p. 45 Rates of fire given are maximum figures. The Bren could be fired by single rounds or by bursts of 5 rounds. In single round mode, normal fire was 5 rpm and rapid fire 30 rpm. In automatic mode, normal fire was 25 rpm and rapid fire 120 rpm. The usual effective range in combat was 600–800 yds.

p. 46 The official War Establishment in 1940 only required one of the three platoons in a Company to be led by an officer, the other two were led by Sergeants. But the 2/5th Battalion was over-establishment in junior officers, and from contemporary accounts each company in 1940 seems to have been led by one. This later became the standard organisation.

p. 48 IWM Sound Archive, #13437, Frank Hession interview with Peter Hart, (1993) Reels 1–2.

p. 49 Everards war service from his obituary in Firm and Forester 6/4 (1981) p. 256. Deall’s military record from ancestry.com and fold3.com.

p. 50 The 2/5th Leicesters also left behind 3 officers and around 200 other ranks, mostly ‘immatures’. These were sent to 46th Division Details Battalion, at Bestwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottingham, commanded by Major L Sawyer. It is probable that those left in the UK from 2/5th Foresters did the same.

p. 52 The engineering officers quoted were probably from 272nd Field Company RE, also camped at Bruz.

p. 52 The South District was responsible for all Line Of Communications troops in Brittany and the routes up from Marseilles; the North District for the Channel Ports and the communications from Le Mans northwards.

p. 53 Curtis’ telephone conversation with Gort is mentioned by both Lynch and Richardson. Their source appears to be Basil Karslake, 1940 The Last Act (1979), pp.54–55.  Karslake in turn gives the primary source as the Howard Report (TNA, WO 32/12098, Committee to Enquire into Evacuation from French Ports). However, nowhere in this report can I find reference to Curtis’ phone call.

p. 58 WO 106/1741, ‘Summary of the Bartholomew Report [ into lessons learnt from the Flanders Campaign]’ (1940), recommended that Ad Hoc formations ‘should not be created, except as a last resort’.

p. 59 George Cripps is buried in Lapugnoy Cemetery. Percy Cripps only outlived him by a few weeks, dying with the 1/5th Battalion as it retreated into Normandy and Brittany during the ongoing battle for France after Dunkirk. His body was not recovered, he is commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial.

p. 59 According to the battalion war diary, the 2/5th were attached to 138 Brigade at 0930 on 21 May – though MacForce H.Q. was still unclear of the battalion’s whereabouts on that day. 138 Brigade had also originally formed part of 46th Division.

p. 60 An attack by aircraft with British marking are reported in WO 167/0785, 2/5th Leicesters WD for 20 May. WO 167/0826, 9th SF WD for 19 May, reports another such incident. There is no evidence that any RAF aircraft were captured or used by the Germans.

p. 61 There are discrepancies between the battalion diaries at this point. The 2/5th diary describes the moves in the text, but that of 9th Foresters suggests that they moved into line on the 24 May, with the 2/5th on their right. It does confirm that French troops fell back over the canal on the 25 May.

pp. 62-63 and map pp. 64-65 The British dispositions at Oignies come mostly from the relevant war diaries; the French dispositions from Oignies 28 Mai 1940, Entre Memoire et Histoire, pp. 4–12.  Technically, two of the 2 A/T Battery guns were from 223 A/T Battery, but were operating with 2 Battery. The location of 225 Battery RA is not known, no War Diary survives for May 1940.

p. 66 Matthew Richardson, Tigers at Dunkirk, (2010), pp. 31–52 covers the Leicesters’ action at Oignies. The 2/5 Leicesters’ War Diary ends abruptly on 25 May. A few survivors – three officers and about fifty men – did participate with the 8th DLI in defence of Carvin, the rest of the battalion was scattered and made their way independently back to Dunkirk if they could.

p. 67 Stanley Storey, whose account is in More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 9, was not quite as isolated as he thought, as Horace Hansell also witnessed Henriques’ and Kellett’s deaths, (ibid p. 16). In October 2025 I was made aware of a newspaper article reporting the visit of Jim Henriques’ mother to Oignies after the war in which she saw what she believed to be his steel helmet with a bullet hole through it (Buxton Advertiser 28 June 1947).

pp. 67-68 Hartigan’s award was gazetted on 20 December 1940 (London Gazette p. 7190). Mentioned in Despatches is the lowest level of gallantry award in the British Army, there is no medal given but an oak leaf device is worn on the campaign medal ribbon. In 1940 it was the only award other than the Victoria Cross which could be awarded posthumously – had Hartigan survived he may have received a higher honour.  McCall was also posthumously mentioned in despatches, not gazetted until 10 March 1942 (London Gazette, p.1109).

pp. 67-68  The retirement of A and B companies is described by Doug Cousin in On Active Service, pp. 7–8, Dixon, ibid, p. 18, Hansell, in More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 16.

p. 68 The bodies of the nineteen men are buried in Oignies and Dourges Military Cemeteries. Barclay’s history repeats the war diary number. Wally Binch, in More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 8, gives seven officers and forty ORs. From analysis of the individual casualty lists, Barclay’s figure would appear to include casualties through to the end of the campaign, and Binch’s figure seems to be the more accurate for the action around Oignies alone. Aside from those killed, the casualty lists indicate two officers and twenty-one ORs taken prisoner, of whom eight ORs were also wounded, on 26-28 May. Another six wounded have no recorded date for their injuries, and two PoWs no date of capture in either British or German records.

p. 69 The action at Oignies is briefly covered in Blaxland, Destination Dunkirk, p. 255, but his description of the action is not entirely correct, mixing up the actions of the two DLI regiments and referring to the 56th Anti-Tank Rgt rather than the 13th.

pp. 69-70 The massacre at Oignies is covered in a number of French works. The earliest source, Oignies, Première Cité Martyre says that an eyewitness identified the officer responsible as SS officer Orts [sic] Kolrep. An article by Marie Paule Hervieu, October 10, 2016 <www.cercleshoah.org/spip.php?article528> [accessed 19 June 2019], a review of Jacqueline Duhem, Crimes et Criminels de Guerre Allemands de 1940 à nos jours dans le NordPas-De-Calais(Lille: Les Lumières de Lille, 2016) names him as Hans Kolrep of 267th Infantry Division, while a blog on the website ‘Le Monde en Guerre’ <www.39–5.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=14000> [accessed 19 June 2019] has the more complete details given here, citing Jean Paul Visse, Mai 1940: Sang et Larmes sur le Nord (1990). Eric Alary, Nouvelle Histoire de la Occupation (Paris: Perrin, 2019) says the officer was Horst Kolrep, SS Totenkopf Division, and that he was executed in Lille on 1 June 1951. It is probable Kolrep was in the regular army in 1940 and transferred to the SS later in the war.

p.70 For the background to the Davenport story see ‘Le Monde en Guerre’ website; ‘Military Intelligence’, Yorkshire Post, Wednesday 22 November 1939, p2; Pegg, On Active Service, p.32; Garrett, None but the Brave, p. 66; personal records related to Davenport from www.ancestry.com and www.findmypast.co.uk. Davenport’s wife visited Oignies in 2002, see ‘Widow of 'Dunkirk martyr' causes red faces in a small French town’, Independent, Saturday 19 October 2002, the date of Davenport’s death is incorrectly given in the article as 1989.