4 Evacuation

p. 72 Bradley died on 7 August 1940 is buried in the Military Cemetery at Longueval.

p. 75 Cousin’s view of the bridge incident in in On Active Service, p. 8. Alan Orme’s version is in ‘Some Experiences of War’ (NCA DDSF/3/12), p. 2–3, also in More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 21; and IWM Tape #21600, Reel 3. In the first of these, though not in the others, Orme specifically says that the incident took place at Teteghem. However, some details in his account cannot apply to that location, for example that thousands of civilian refugees were crossing the bridges, that it took several days to reach the coast, and that Cresswick had been given a list of towns to retreat through back to Dunkirk. Teteghem is only 4 miles from Dunkirk, well within the military perimeter. It seems possible that Orme has conflated memories of the retreat with memories of the bridge incident. The important fact is that there are two very different perspectives of the event.

p. 76 Three accounts, from Cooper, Pegg and Price, record this incident, and two of them name one of the men as William Martin, originally from the Leicestershire Regiment.  The CWGC database has Martin dying on 1 June, but the precise date of death is not always accurate in casualty lists of the 1940 campaign.  Martin is buried in Calais military cemetery supporting the story that his grave was disturbed. The second soldier has not been identified; William Gent of the 2/5th Foresters, from Sheepbridge in Derbyshire, is also listed as killed in action on 1 June, but German records indicate that he had been taken prisoner and died in captivity. Gent is buried in Étaples military cemetery.

p. 78 The Loyals arrived at Dunkirk too late to be lifted that night and were amongst the final British troops taken off just before midnight next day.

p. 78 The Hospital ship incident is recalled by Orme in ‘Some Experiences of War’, p. 4; also More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 21 and IWM Tape #21600, Reel 4; and by Price, On Active Service, p. 14. For the attacks on the Worthing, see Winser, BEF Ships Before, At and After Dunkirk (1999), p. 32; and Don Kindell, ‘British and Other Navies in World War 2 Day-by-Day, Naval Events, June 1940 (Part 1 of 4) Saturday 1st – Friday 7th’ <https://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2–4006–19JUN01.htm.>[accessed 18 June 2019]. Orme seems to imply the ship he saw was sunk, but the Worthing survived the attack and returned to Dover. Victor Tupling, evacuated on HMS Esk on June 1, describes rescuing survivors from the hospital ship Scotia, (Tupling, IWM Tape #16086, Reel 3), but the Scotia was an ordinary passenger ship requisitioned for the evacuation,

p. 79 The war diary records that on the 31 May there were 15 officers and 411 other ranks present at Téteghem. Everard’s batman was presumably William Edward Lea, the only casualty in the battalion recorded to have died on 2 June, and remarkably the only one listed on the Dunkirk Memorial to the missing.  HMS Tynewald docked in Folkestone with 1,688 men on board on 1 June. Willis Dixon remembered being taken off by HMS Intrepid, but she only made one trip to Dunkirk, on the 29 May. Either Dixon was taken off earlier than the rest of the battalion, or it is possible he had her confused with one of her sister ships, possibly HMS Icarus, which took off Frank Hession on 31 May, the day after his 38th birthday, or HMS Impulsive, which made six and four trips respectively between 29 May and 2 June.

p. 79-80 Orme’s account is from ‘Some Experiences of War’, pp. 3–4 and More Sherwood Forester Memories, p. 21; timing from Winser. The 2/5th were amongst the last battalions away, probably on the same night as Orme. If his recollections are correct then the beach officer may have been referring to the 2nd Foresters, who had been lifted off on 31 May. Another possibility is that Orme was taken off the night of 2–3 June, when Winchelsea evacuated a further 152 men, in which case he was amongst the very last British troops to leave.

p. 80 The redistribution area for 46th Division was originally planned to be Pembrokeshire, but this had been changed to Manchester by the time the Division returned (TNA, WO106/1618, Evacuation of B.E.F. France, Plan DYNAMO, Encl. 4A, War Office Memo 28 May, 1940). Corps troops were sent to reorganisation Areas, which carried out the same function as redistribution areas but were organised according to the arm of the service to which the men belonged.