The Defence of Calais Read online

  THE

  DEFENCE OF

  CALAIS

  By ERIC LINKLATER

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  The Defence of Calais

  I. Purpose and Achievement

  II. Calais

  III. The Opening Scene

  IV. Wednesday the Twenty-second

  V. Thursday the Twenty-third

  VI. Friday the Twenty-fourth

  VII. Saturday the Twenty-fifth

  VIII. Sunday the Twenty-sixth

  IX. Monday the Twenty-seventh

  A Note on the Author

  Author’s Note

  This is an interim report. The whole story of the defence of Calais will never be told, because much of it was enacted by little groups of men who, with no witness but the enemy, fought till they were killed. But many survived the action and are now prisoners of war. Some day they will tell, more fully and more accurately than I have done, the story of Calais. In the meantime, I have gathered what information I could from various records in the War Office, and from officers and men who took part in the fighting.

  Major Williams, M.C., 60th Rifles, who was made prisoner but escaped, let me use his own narrative, and gave me other assistance. Major D. E. B. Talbot, Royal West Kent Regiment, and Major J. A. Taylor, M.C., the Rifle Brigade, gave me their evidence and much help. So did Lance-Corporal Illingworth, Queen Victoria’s Rifles, and Rifleman Hosington, D.C.M., 60th Rifles. I also read a short account of the affair by Lieutenant T. S. Lucas, M.C., Queen Victoria’s Rifles; and other survivors’ narratives. Two reports by Lieutenant-Colonel Keller, Royal Tank Regiment, were particularly useful. Mrs. Hoskyns allowed me to see certain papers that belonged to her son, the late Lieutenant-Colonel Chandos Hoskyns, the Rifle Brigade; and I read an interesting report by Captain W. C. Robertson of the S.S. Kohistan. The Hon. Mrs. Nicholson, whose husband, Brigadier Nicholson, is now a prisoner of war, also gave me information.

  But even with so much help, the story is far from complete. In parts it may be inaccurate, and because it fails to mention many brave men, many a gallant action, it is certainly unjust. But the outline is here, and something may be learnt of the spirit which animated the defence. That is my justification for giving out a half-told tale: of such a story even a fragment is worth the telling.

  The Defence of Calais

  I. Purpose and Achievement

  On the 22nd and 23rd May, 1940,, a small British force was disembarked in Calais. Its purpose was to keep the port open and establish lines of communication with Dunkirk. A rather sinister attention was by then focused upon Dunkirk; though few people had yet thought of it as the gate whose opening or closing would mean life or death to our continental Army.

  The British Expeditionary Force, retreating westward from the river Escaut, was already isolated from its principal bases of supply. The enemy’s armoured divisions, advancing rapidly towards the coast from the area between Albert and Cambrai, had cut its lines of communication. The primary object of the Calais Force was therefore to secure a new supply-route.

  That this would be impossible became apparent almost immediately. The enemy, still advancing, was enormously superior both in numbers and in strength. The Calais Force had no hope of breaking through the ever-thickening horde that pressed upon its thinly manned defences, and only by the utmost gallantry could it expect to hold the town even for a few days.

  Therefore the strategic value of Calais, as a port, no longer existed, and it was debated whether or not the Force should be re-embarked, and Calais abandoned. But finally an order was sent to Brigadier Nicholson to remain where he was. General Ironside, the C.I.G.S., used these words: “You will carry out this order in an active, not a passive manner. I need not say more.” This decision had an unforeseen result.

  The Force was annihilated, but the fury of its death struggle engaged, during four vital days, the whole strength of at least two Panzer divisions that might otherwise have cut our retreating army’s road to the sea.

  Between Calais and Dunkirk the French were given time to flood and hold the Gravelines water-lines, and this was a decisive operation in the successful rearguard action that permitted the evacuation of more than three hundred thousand French and British soldiers. The scythe-like sweep of the German divisions stopped, with a jerk, at Calais. The tip of the scythe had met a stone.

  II. Calais

  Approaching Caxais from the Channel, one first sees a pair of breakwaters and a couple of tall spires: an old lighthouse and the Church of Notre Dame. To the east there are sand and benty dunes, to the west a bathing-beach of no great attraction. The historical interest of the town depends chiefly on the two hundred years during which it was English territory. This period opens with the well-known story of the Burghers of Calais, and was closed by a French army, of overwhelming numbers, that recaptured the town, after a few days’ siege, from a small and poorly equipped English garrison.

  In appearance Calais is not impressive. From the Gare Maritime the railway emerges to thread the streets, to loop the old town, and meet another line that surrounds the larger new town; canals intersect the whole area, and bridges are about as numerous as level-crossings. The houses, straight-fronted with their windows shuttered, may, to a sensitive observer, look slightly inhospitable. The town is flat except in the Courgain, the narrow-laned fishermen’s quarter, where the ground rises to a modest height.

  In plan, Calais somewhat resembles a plum. The stone of the plum is Calais-Nord: the old town and the docks and the Citadel. The new town, Calais-Sud, which encloses the old, is the flesh of the plum.

  In this narrative of the defence of Calais, there is frequent reference to an Outer Perimeter and an Inner Perimeter. The Outer Perimeter, on which the opening phase of the battle was fought, is roughly a line surrounding the entire plum; the Inner Perimeter, where the second phase was fought, surrounds the stone of the plum, and that part called the Petit Courgain.

  The outer line coincides over much of its length with the railway-line; and this runs along an embankment which is largely made of the old ramparts that protected Calais when it was a fortified town. This embankment was obviously useful to the defence. The Inner Perimeter was guarded to some extent by canals.

  The neighbouring country is flat, sprinkled with villages, cut by numerous canals and ditches, crossed by embankments. Immediately to the east of the town there is a wood: it was to the north of this wood, and east of the Bassin des Chasses, that the 60th and the Rifle Brigade assembled after going ashore.

  Calais had no defences of its own except a couple of coastal batteries, which were useless against attack from the other side; and their guns were not in action.

  III. The Opening Scene

  The 30th Infantry Brigade was commanded by Brigadier Claude Nicholson, and consisted of a battalion each of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles), Queen Victoria’s Rifles, and the Rifle Brigade. The Brigade Group was completed by a battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment, and an Anti-Tank battery of Royal Artillery.

  Queen Victoria’s Rifles and the Tank battalion arrived in Calais on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 22nd. The Tank battalion had orders to disembark with all possible speed, but the cranes on the quay were out of action. The electric power had been cut off. A party of Royal Engineers, after some delay, got them into working order, and throughout the night the light tanks and cruiser tanks and transport vehicles were hoisted out. But the battalion had left its home station at four hours’ notice. Some of its stores had not arrived in time, and its guns were still in a peaceful coating of mineral jelly. The troopers were at work all night, cleaning their weapons, checking equipment, fuelling.

  By noon on Thursday the harbour was almost empty:
all the small craft that normally used it had gone. But the roads leading into Calais were still crowded with despairing people fleeing from the German advance. The troops who had just gone ashore had orders to prevent them coming into the town, and in this impossible task they showed the utmost patience. The French civilians had been instructed to keep an alert eye open for spies, and Riflemen who knew no word of any language but their own had to listen to many a vivid but wholly incomprehensible denunciation of suspicious characters. There was a rumour, too, premature by a day or so, that Boulogne had fallen.

  The Rifle Brigade and the 60th arrived in Calais early on Thursday afternoon. They were followed by two motor-transport ships, which docked a few hours later: these ships carried vehicles, ammunition, and other equipment. The business of unloading was even more difficult than it had been the day before. Calais was swarming with refugees, and the remnants of broken units, seeking the nearest port, came driving in and jammed the roads about the harbour with their trucks and lorries. Two hospital trains arrived, full of wounded men.

  These trains had been three days on their journey. They had gone to Dunkirk and to Boulogne, and at neither place could the wounded men be received and put aboard a ship. There may have been as many as six hundred men in the trains, but when soldiers came to carry them to the docks, they found many dead.

  On Thursday afternoon the Germans began to shell the harbour. At intervals from four to six, and again when darkness fell, it was under fire. The French stevedores showed some unwillingness to work in these conditions, and about thirty Sappers took over the task of unloading the transport ships. They were, presumably, not quite so dexterous as professionals would have been, and by the following morning, though one ship had been emptied, there was still a great deal of cargo aboard the other.

  Then in the confusion, in the crossing tides of soldiers forming to go into action, and non-combatants under orders to return, and the long-suffering wounded being taken to hospital—and the sooner they got there the more would be healed—then there occurred a most unhappy mischance. On the day before, the City of Canterbury had gone out full of refugees, and now these other ships put to sea with their hundreds of wounded aboard, and sixteen hundred non-combatants of one sort or another. And with its human cargo the unloaded vessel took back to England about two-thirds of the Rifle Brigade’s stores and vehicles.

  It is not known who gave the order to sail. A message may have been misinterpreted, or someone, burdened by his own responsibility, may have been hasty, may have been ignorant that ammunition for the defence was still on board. The enemy had his Fifth Column at work in Calais; the order may have come from a German agent. But whoever gave the word was responsible for a disastrous weakening of the little garrison that remained in Calais.

  It was in these circumstances of unending hubbub and crowded confusion, in the heat of summer, that the Force came ashore. It was in these circumstances that Nicholson had to decide the manner of his defence, reconnoitre his position, and dispose his troops. He did not know, with any accuracy, where the Germans were. But he knew they were not far away, and he was to see them, soon enough.

  IV. Wednesday the Twenty-second

  German reconnaissance planes, flying high over the Channel, observed the crossing of the ships on Wednesday; but our information of the enemy’s activity came largely from less accurate sources. Refugees, no matter from what direction they arrived, had nearly always seen a German column just down the road.

  Queen Victoria’s Rifles, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel McCartney, landed in the early afternoon, and one Company immediately took up a position to cover the harbour, while the other Companies went to the outskirts of the town; a Company was later sent to Sangatte, a small bathing resort about four miles from Calais in the direction of Boulogne. During the evening orders were issued to cover the roads leading to Dunkirk, and the Company at the harbour moved off in a throng of refugees, of Belgian and French soldiers, and began to build road-blocks about five miles out.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Keller, commanding the Tank battalion, found a suitable harbour for his fighting vehicles outside the town, and received, to begin with, orders to make contact with the Guards Brigade at Boulogne. But later in the day new instructions arrived, from General Headquarters, that he was to go at once to St. Omer. He was unable to do this, of course, because his tanks were not yet unloaded. But as soon as a few of them had been put ashore, he sent off a patrol, which returned about two o’clock on Thursday morning with the information that there was no one to report to in St. Omer. This, if true, was bewildering news, for it was then believed that the Tank battalion had been sent to France for the express purpose of giving protection, at St. Omer, to our rear General Headquarters.

  V. Thursday the Twenty-third

  While the 60th and the Rifle Brigade were coming ashore, the Officer Commanding the Headquarters Squadron of the Tank battalion had sent, by wireless telephone, a message to his Colonel. Brigadier Nicholson, he said, wanted to know where the tanks were, and what information there was to guide his disposal of the infantry who, at that moment, were disembarking.

  The Colonel’s reply was impatient. “Get off the air,” he said; “I’m fighting a battle.”

  A liaison officer from General Headquarters had again insisted that the tanks must go to St. Omer. He himself had asked for a patrol, and set off in that direction with three light tanks. He returned to Calais, wounded, about midday. The patrol pushed on, and was never heard of again.

  It was known that a German column was advancing from Marquise, a village between Calais and Boulogne, but by moving swiftly there was a chance of crossing in front of it, through Guines, and reaching St. Omer. But speed was essential. Not all the vehicles had been unloaded, but three squadrons were formed out of those which had come ashore, and they moved off about two o’clock.

  But speed, however much it was desired, was impossible. The roads were full of refugees, French troops marching, army lorries. Sunken roads intersected the countryside. It was an ill place for tanks to manœuvre in. The squadron forming a right flank-guard had to be called in. Then, about five miles out, just west of Guines, the advance guard halted. Along the road in front of it there was a long advancing column, but whether French or German it was difficult to tell. A shower of rain was falling, and visibility was poor.

  The Colonel came up, and about the strange column men hurriedly began to move anti-tank guns into position. They were Germans and the battle started.

  It was a ragged, inconclusive affair. Some of our tanks, hull-down, cruised along the column, firing into it. But the Germans had heavier vehicles, a field-gun, more anti-tank guns than at first were seen. We were outmatched, and several of our tanks were hit and disabled. The Colonel decided to rally the battalion and withdraw behind the railway towards Coquelles. There he got a message that the Brigadier was coming out to see him, and meanwhile he must remain on his new position, on the high ground near Coquelles.

  Moving into Position

  During the earliest hours of Thursday—while the tanks were still being unloaded, and before the ships that brought the 60th and the Rifle Brigade were in sight of France—dawn patrols of Queen Victoria’s Rifles had gone out in several directions. They must have pressed forward, intent only on finding the enemy. They found him, and did not return.

  Then, in the afternoon, the 60th and the Rifle Brigade came ashore, and assembled on the sand-dunes north-east of Calais. His Majesty’s ships Vimiera and Windsor were patrolling to the west, and fighters of the Royal Air Force defended the air. There was no enemy bombing during Thursday. But the sound of firing, first heard from the south-western approaches, spread eastward round the perimeter, and told the waiting infantry what they might soon expect.

  The area of assembly in the dunes lay between the beach and a small wood, and when evening came the men could hear, not only shell-fire and the lapsing noise of the sea, but the insistent song of nightingales. The nightingales, not long arrived from
Africa, were in full song, and throughout the battle they were as. melodious by night as the guns were harsh by day.

  From the sand-hills the two battalions moved to their positions on the outer perimeter, the 60th on the Boulogne side of the town, the Rifle Brigade on the side towards Dunkirk. The Rifle Brigade had their outer flank on the dunes north-east of the harbour; the 60th had theirs on the western outskirts of Fort Risban. The junction of the two battalions was in the neighbourhood of the Halte St. Pierre. The 60th, if they could reach there, were also to make contact with the detachment of Queen Victoria’s Rifles at Sangatte.

  A few civilian motor-cars were requisitioned to take some of the troops to their positions, but the majority had to march. For many it was a forced march, three miles across the town, opposed by a turbulent stream of civilian refugees. At intervals throughout this difficult movement—during the late hours of, Thursday and the early morning of Friday, that is—the Germans were shelling the streets.

  An hour or so before darkness, about eight o’clock, Nicholson had arrived at the Tank battalion’s position near Coquelles. He explained his purpose, which was to try and open the road to Dunkirk. The tanks were to stay where they were till dark, and then return to a rendezvous near the Porte de Marck, from where the attempt would be made. Nicholson had, in the meantime, formed a patrol of the cruisers and light tanks remaining in Calais, and sent it out on the road to Ardres. But at Les Attaques it had found a road-block defended by anti-tanks guns, a field-gun, and half a dozen German tanks. That way was closed.

  The Road to Dunkirk was Closed

  A little before midnight the exploratory thrust towards Dunkirk was set in motion. About 560 tons of provisions had been landed, half of which, already loaded on to lorries, was ready to move. Two tank patrols went out. One reached Marck and returned without having seen the enemy, but the other found him at Le Beaumarais. About two o’clock on Friday morning, the Brigadier himself accompanying it, a composite company of the Rifle Brigade went out on either side of a squadron of tanks, but failed to move the enemy from his position. Here again the nature of the country hampered the movement of tanks, and there was no room to deploy a second squadron. The situation was stalemate. The road to Dunkirk was closed, and in its original purpose the Calais Force was already defeated.