The Defence of the
Dunkirk Pocket
Battlefield Study to
Cassel and Calais
The authors of this publication are:
Matthew Holden and Captain James M Wakeley
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Foreword
The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Battlefield Study to Cassel and Calais
Battlefield studies present a unique opportunity to advance our knowledge of the Conceptual and Moral
Components of Fighting Power. We can learn what worked, and what failed, whilst investigating with the benefit of
hindsight why this was so. We can grapple with real-world – rather than exercise-world – situations and apply our
own doctrine to see what we would do now, if we found ourselves on the ridge of Cassel or in the streets of Calais
facing a modern conventional enemy. Should we even allow ourselves to be fixed in such static positions in the first
place? Could we not rather exploit the mobility of an armoured brigade combat team and modern intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to fight a more active mobile defence?
Ever evolving though the character of war may be, allowing us to ask such questions, its nature is unchanging.
The resilience and tenacity of the defenders of Cassel and Calais offer timeless lessons in leadership and soldiering,
lessons to which we can, and should, pay homage as their regimental successors. Many of those who fought and
died in these actions in May 1940 were soldiers in the Territorial Army, a reminder that the Reserves have always
played a crucial role in national defence, as we of course continue to do so today.
My thanks are due to all in the battalion who have made this battlefield study a reality. Especial thanks, however,
are due to Matthew Holden, the Curator of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum, who has provided vital historical
and archival support as well as kindly agreeing to author some of what follows. The museum, one of many to our
regimental forebears that we are fortunate to have as Riflemen, is well worth a visit.
I hope you enjoy walking the ground where past generations of British soldiers made history.
Lt Col James Baker
Commanding Officer, 7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Contents
The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Battlefield Study to Cassel and Calais
Foreword
Contents
iii
iv
Introduction Cassel and Calais in 1940
1
The War in 1940: Fall Gelb - Capt James M Wakeley
2
Germany versus the Western Allies
2
Manstein’s Plan: Sichelschnitt
4
Allied Inertia & Plan D
5
Germany Attacks
7
Allied Error, German Luck?
11
Cassel - Matthew Holden & Capt James M Wakeley
145 Brigade
15
German Forces
16
Reconstructing the Battle of Cassel: Problems with the Source Material
17
The Battle of Cassel - Matthew Holden & Capt James M Wakeley
Opening Dispositions
20
The Blockhouse at Le Peckel
22
Zuytpeene and Bavinchove
24
Mont Cassel: 27th May
25
Mont Cassel: 28th – 29th May
27
Aftermath
28
The Defence of Calais - Capt James M Wakeley
Calais and The Opposing Forces
30
The Battle
32
Aftermath
34
Cassel
The Defence
37
Calais
Operations in the Urban Environment
Notes
iv
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Introduction
Tactical success in the face of strategic failure
Cassel and Calais in 1940
This war is sheer madness! We have
gone to war with a 1918 army against a
German army of 1939!
Thus spoke Général Weygand, France’s new Commander-inChief, to Winston Churchill’s Special Emissary on the same day
in which the first soldiers of 145 Brigade were moving into the
hilltop village of Cassel, in French Flanders. The Allied situation
was indeed dire. The front had been broken at Sedan, the
panzers had streamed across the River Meuse, and the British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) was retreating to the Channel coast.
Weygand’s words encapsulate the way in which the fateful
summer of 1940 would come to be remembered. Tactically
backward and under-equipped allied armies, so the story goes,
were rapidly routed by the modern and innovative forces of
the Third Reich, the masters of a new way of war: Blitzkrieg.
‘You can’t blame the army,’ says the journalist Charles
Foreman in the 1958 film Dunkirk, ‘they had what we gave
them, last war’s weapons, last war’s methods.’
Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only did
the combined armies of France, The Netherlands, Belgium,
and Britain outnumber Germany’s, they were also generally
far better equipped. They enjoyed interior lines of supply,
knowledge of the ground, and the resources of vast colonial
empires. Blitzkrieg was not the product of Nazi masterminds
planning the conquest of Europe on the exercise fields
of Germany since 1933, but the result of a willingness to
embrace risk when no other option was viable, and sheer
luck. Elements of the German high command even considered
mounting a coup against Hitler, so disastrous did they
expect the invasion of France to be. The real reasons for the
calamitous collapse of the Allies have far more to do with the
abject failure of military strategy and politics at the highest of
levels than they do with the officers and men whose ‘Phoney
War’ became all too real in May 1940.
The Battles of Cassel and Calais are striking examples of the
fighting abilities and tactical success of the BEF in the face
of this strategic failure. Men of 145 Brigade, formed largely
from 2nd Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment, and 4th
Battalion the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry –
direct antecedents of The Rifles Regiment – held the line for
the best part of a week against repeated German attacks,
allowing most of the BEF to make it to Dunkirk. The sacrifice
of The Rifles Brigade and others at Calais likewise bought vital
time and demonstrated the resolution of Britain to fight. Both
battles are excellent studies in the Area Defence.
This booklet is designed to act as a handrail for studying these
engagements. The first chapter briefly looks at the background
and the events that led to Cassel and Calais. The second then
focuses on the background to Cassel, before the third chapter
explores the battle itself, looking in particular at a number of
tactical actions on the 27th May 1940. The final chapter then
moves to Calais. The Appendices – ‘Walking the Battlefields’ –
provide material designed to focus minds on learning from the
events of 1940.
It would have been impossible to put this booklet together
without help and advice from various quarters. I would
personally like to thank Matthew Holden of the Soldiers of
Gloucestershire Museum for access to the GLOSTERS’ material
on Cassel and for agreeing to become co-author. The archives
and our discussions were truly invaluable in developing my
own understanding of Cassel and the wider experience of 2
GLOSTERS in 1940. WO2 Gwyn Williams accompanied me on
the recce and provided an astute and experienced perspective
on the ground and how to fight from it today. Major Robert
Whittle cast an expert eye over the final draft. Any errors that
remain are my own.
Overall, to learn from history, we must apply knowledge of the
present. How would we fight Cassel and Calais today, with
the technology, order of battle, and doctrine that did not exist
in the mid-twentieth century? Studying the successes, and
indeed the failures, of previous generations should inspire us
not merely to copy, but to adapt and improve.
Had the Allied high command broken-out of the self-defeating
neurosis that took hold of them during the Battle of France,
studied the situation at hand with enterprise, and fully
exploited the advantages and capabilities that they had to
hand, Cassel and Calais would probably never have become
the battlefields that we walk today.
Capt James M Wakeley 7th Battalion, The Rifles Regiment
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The War in 1940: Fall Gelb
After I finished, there was total silence...
Hitler sat there as if petrified and stared
straight ahead. He was not stunned, as
was maintained later, and he did not
rant and rave either, as others claimed
they knew. He sat in his seat completely
quiet and motionless. After a while,
which seemed like an eternity to me, he
turned to Ribbentrop, who kept standing
at the window as if frozen. ‘What now?’
Hitler asked his Foreign Minister with a
furious gaze in his eyes as if he wanted to
indicate that Ribbentrop had misinformed
him about the reaction of the British.
Softly, Ribbentrop replied: ‘I assume that
the French will shortly give us an identical
ultimatum.’
Göring turned to me and said: ‘If we lose
this war, may Heaven have mercy on us!’
The recollections of Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s chief
interpreter, of events in the Reich Chancellery
immediately after Britain’s declaration of war on the 3rd
of September 1939 speak to a broader truth about the
start of the Second World War. Hitler and Germany may
well have had vast imperial and ideological ambitions,
but it was not the Führer’s intent to fulfil them in
1939. Germany was under-resourced, under-equipped,
and unprepared. There was simply no master plan for
continental conquest, contrary to what still seems to be
the myth in Anglophone popular memory. The relatively
rapid defeat of Poland, whose invasion had prompted
the British declaration of war, was as much the product
of the Soviet Union’s complementary invasion as it was
of German arms. The total collapse of the Western Allies
in the following year was unimaginable to the fearful
leaders of the Third Reich as they started to digest the
reality of a war on two fronts that September day.
To understand why daring defensive battles were
fought at Cassel and Calais in May 1940, it is first
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important to appreciate the strategic background, the
operational decisions, and the events that resulted in
the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to
the Channel Coast and the ultimate loss of the Battle of
France. The nature of the German invasion plan – given
the unremarkable codename of Fall Gelb (Operation
Yellow) – resulted from weakness rather than strength.
Its success owed much to a toxic cocktail of Allied
errors and psychological shock on the one hand, and
the willingness of some brilliant German commanders
to push their luck beyond the breaking point of
conventional military logic on the other.
Germany versus the
Western Allies
The coalition that faced Hitler’s Germany in the summer
of 1940 was, in men, materiel, and overall on-paper
ability to wage war, far superior to its opponent. Allied
material advantages ranged all the way from access
to the resources of world empires right down to – in
the case of Britain at least – the kind of webbing and
battledress that would be worn by the defenders of
Cassel and Calais. The fact that these basic strategic
advantages did not translate into a crushing Allied
victory is a salutary reminder that nothing in war is
inevitable, and that rigorous, daring planning, when
combined with the whole host of human factors in the
execution on the battlefield, can craft victory from grave
uncertainty and profound disadvantages.
By the summer of 1940, Germany was able to muster
a total of 93 divisions on the Western Front, with 42
reserve divisions earmarked to support the summer
offensive. This amounted to a total of approximately
3 million men, but was realistically smaller as the
overwhelming majority of the 42 reserve divisions were
not in a position to contribute to the offensive by the
time it was launched. Only 16 of the regular divisions,
moreover, were motorised, divided into 10 panzer
divisions and 6 divisions of mechanised infantry.
The rest of the German Army would not have looked
out of place in an order of battle dating to 1914,
or even dating to the later nineteenth century. The
overwhelming majority of the infantry that invaded
France and the Low Countries in 1940 marched into
battle, with their supplies – like Germany’s artillery
– dragged to the front by horse-drawn wagons.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Germany’s Army was in many respects two armies in
one: a relatively small fraction that would come to
embody the Blitzkrieg legend, and one that would use
more horses than the army the Second Reich used in
World War One.
This lack of mechanised military capacity pointed to
a deeper problem in Germany’s war economy. Nazi
propaganda about Autobahns and the Volkswagen
notwithstanding, Germany was one of the least
mechanised major powers in Europe. In 1935, for
example, there was only one car in Germany for every
65 people, as opposed to one car for every 23 people
in Britain. The relatively under-developed automobile
industry was not only small, but fragmented. The
Wehrmacht used a total of 131 different types of
truck, all of which required different spare parts and
mechanical know-how to fix. The economies of scale
necessary to ramp up production rapidly for wartime
simply did not exist. Any vehicle losses the Wehrmacht
suffered could not be replaced with the same ease and
speed as those of the Allies.
Even the mechanised assets that Germany did have
were not only outnumbered – 2,439 tanks to 4,204
of those of the Allies, for instance – they were also
generally technically inferior. The majority of German
tanks that would come to play a role in the West in May
1940 were Panzer Is and Panzer IIs. Both had armour
no thicker than 15mm and sported, in the case of the
Panzer I, a mere brace of machineguns and, in the case
of the Panzer II, a small-calibre cannon (20mm). They
were no match for heavier Allied tanks. The French
Char-B and its variants, for example, had armour no
weaker than 40mm and a 75mm main armament.
Even the much-maligned British Matilda I was all but
invulnerable to the Wehrmacht’s panzers, with its 80mm
of armour plating.
When German and Allied tanks found themselves
in the same place at the same time, results could be
dramatically one-sided. At Stonne, south of Sedan, on
16th May for example, one French Char-B managed to
destroy 13 panzers and two anti-tank guns before it
was stopped. There are even accounts of German crews
dismounting and assaulting Allied tanks on foot rather
than seeking to meet them in their own vehicles. The
notion of German mechanised strength fundamentally
owed far more to clever information operations and Nazi
bombast than reality. German newsreels were all too
keen to broadcast coverage of the 10% of its army that
was mechanised rather than the 90% of it that was not.
Combined, the Allied armies were more numerous
and far less-reliant on human and horse muscle for
movement. Once the German invasion brought the
Netherlands and Belgium into the war, mobilised
strength on the Western Front came to 4 million, with
millions more to be raised from home countries and
overseas colonies alike. France put 117 divisions into
the field, with the 440,000 men of the BEF forming 13
divisions (Belgium mustered 22 and the Dutch 10). The
BEF, moreover, was entirely mechanised. It no longer
even had horse-drawn artillery and the tracked Universal
Carrier – popularly known as the ‘Bren Gun Carrier’
– offered the ability to move infantry sections across
rough terrain, with armoured protection, at speed. The
total mechanisation of the British Army helps to explain
why it was able to execute its eventual withdrawal to
the coast successfully, and also how it was able rapidly
to redeploy formations like 145 Brigade to defensive
locations like Cassel to guard its swiftly shifting flanks.
The wider equipment of the BEF in 1940 could also be
considered world-leading. The stereotype of the smart
German and the somewhat dowdy British Tommy points
to the fact that the British Army, once rearmament fully
got under way in the later 1930s, had modernised its
basic kit and equipment to cope with the demands of
the modern battlefield. The new field dress and the
1937 pattern canvas webbing was light, manoeuvrable,
easily-manufactured, cheap and resilient. The iconic
Short Magazine Lee Enfield Rifle (No. III and eventually
the No. IV) had a rate of fire twice that of its French
and German equivalents in well-trained hands. The Bren
Gun could also be considered the best light machinegun
of its day. The British 25-pounder anti-tank gun was
similarly a battle-winning asset that could defeat the
toughest armour sent against it, and even the infantry
platoon-level Boys Anti-Tank Rifle was technically
sufficient to disable the Panzer I and Panzer II.
Dashing though they arguably may have looked, the
average German soldier in 1940 still marched into
battle with heavy leather kit that would have been
recognisable to his father and even to his grandfather.
His well-tailored tunic was expensive to manufacture,
and, when combined with almost knee-high leather
boots, remained designed more for the parade ground
than for a modern infantry war of fire and manoeuvre.
The somewhat antiquated German uniform consciously
evoked the myth of Prussian military might. The
Wehrmacht sought to look smart and efficient – an
image that Nazi propaganda was naturally keen
to promote – but superficial looks were in no way
reflective of any intrinsic practical superiority.
That said, some of the Wehrmacht’s arms, like the new
MP38, were truly masterpieces of design. They were,
however, expensive and prone to a lack of robustness
that can come with being too finely engineered. The
MG34’s impressive rate-of-fire (900 rounds per minute),
for instance, could never be practically employed as
even 250 rounds per minute tended to melt barrels
and mar accuracy. The need to feed and service such a
hungry and intricate weapon could often consume the
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
attention of the entire 10-man Gruppe – the equivalent
of a British section – thereby sacrificing a platoon’s basic
tactical flexibility for hardly-guaranteed fire superiority.
Germany was also at a slight disadvantage in the air.
For internal political reasons, Hermann Göring – head
of the Luftwaffe and effectively Hitler’s deputy – had
persistently exaggerated the strength and ability of his
service. On the opening day of the western offensive,
Germany could muster 2,589 operational fighter and
bomber aircraft. France possessed 3,562 and Britain
could realistically claim to have been able to field 1,870
from the squadrons in France and those immediately
on the British side of the Channel. The actual ability
of the Allies to match the operational strength of the
Luftwaffe in certain sectors in the summer of 1940
may be far less clear-cut – and further complicated by
Britain’s unwillingness to risk the entirety of the RAF in
the Battle of France – but the inability of the Allies to
achieve air superiority was not the preordained result of
numerical or indeed technical deficiencies.
Consideration of the machinery of modern war aside,
it is unclear to what extent the Wehrmacht’s Polish
campaign and its overall training standard could be
said to have made the average German soldier tactically
more capable than his French or British opposite
number. Half of the German formations that advanced
into France and the Low Countries had had only weeks
of training. As many as 45% were over the age of
40. The average British Territorial who found himself
shipped to France in 1939 and 1940 was no worse
trained. Further, even though the German Army had
certainly expanded from the constraints imposed upon
it by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, its small professional
officer corps had not had the same opportunities as
France’s and Britain’s. The fact that the names and
reputation of some German commanders like Rommel
became so well known in the wake of the Battle of
France was because they were exceptions, not examples
of the average.
Overall, Germany in the spring of 1940 was outgunned
and outnumbered by the Western Allies and relatively
under-resourced, even discounting the still neutral
Low Countries. Behind this proximate strategic picture
sat a far more significant reality. Britain and France
controlled vast colonial empires, hundreds of thousands
more tons of merchant shipping than Germany, the
natural resources vital to modern war, and the rapidlyscalable capacity of the oldest industrial powers. A
long war, in which the Royal Navy would be able to
repeat the economic blockade it had inflicted with
such devastating results on Germany in World War
One, was bound to favour the Western Allies. German
U-boats may certainly have been becoming a terrifying,
lurking presence for Allied shipping in the Atlantic. Yet
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the Kriegsmarine simply lacked the numbers decisively
to alter the strategic balance on the seas, not least as
its battleships were already being defeated in detail,
notwithstanding some embarrassments being suffered
by the Royal Navy.
The collapse of France and the expulsion of the BEF
from Europe was not, therefore, anything like a given
result of a German offensive in the West. In the words
of the popular historian James Holland, Germany ‘faced
a stark choice: a more cautious plan that would avoid
any quick defeat, or a go-for-broke gamble that risked
everything but which also offered the only realistic
chance of decisive victory.’ After months of argument,
quiet panic by the German high command, and intricate
planning by a small group of bold officers, Hitler was
presented with just such a gamble that appealed as
much to his sense of destiny as it reflected the position
of strategic weakness in which Germany found herself.
Manstein’s Plan:
Sichelschnitt
Adolf Hitler was not the military mastermind of Nazi
myth. Yet he grasped the importance of a swift strike
against the West. Hitler originally demanded that his
generals launch a major offensive within weeks of
the culmination of the invasion of Poland, a request
that was logistically impossible to fulfil. Plans for the
invasion of France would come to be delayed a total of
twenty-nine times until Fall Gelb was unleashed at 0430
on the morning of Friday, 10th May 1940.
One of the chief reasons for this delay, alongside the
need for the Wehrmacht to reorganise and refit after
its actions in Poland, was the deep scepticism and
methodological conservatism of the German high
command. General Franz Halder, the Army Chief-ofStaff and the man responsible for developing the plan,
had little faith in the Wehrmacht’s ability to defeat the
Western Allies. The best that he and his staff could
devise was essentially a re-run of the Schlieffen Plan
of 1914, in which a large thrust through the Low
Countries – avoiding France’s fortresses on the Maginot
Line – would hopefully work the second time around.
Hitler was unimpressed. Halder, alongside a number
of surprisingly senior officers, even contemplated
mounting a coup against Hitler in order to save
Germany from a defeat akin to that of 1918, a defeat
that haunted the memories of the established officer
class as much as avenging it fired the machinations of
their Führer. Halder went so far as to carry a loaded
pistol into meetings with Hitler, but, like the other
would-be conspirators, lost his nerve to act.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
It was the Chief-of-Staff of one of the formations
earmarked for the offensive, General Erich von
Manstein, who devised the plan that would be put into
action once it was surreptitiously passed to Hitler behind
Halder’s back. Rather than doing what past experience
had taught the Allies to expect and what the existence
of the Maginot Line made prudent – a strike into
northern France through Belgium – Manstein proposed
a dash through the hilly, wooded, and allegedlyimpassable Ardennes region on the Franco-Belgian
border. This, he argued, would cut the Allied line in
two, especially when this Main Effort (Schwerpunkt in
German) was accompanied by a credible feint exactly
where the Allies expected Germany to strike, in the
North. The German divisions would cross the River
Meuse around Sedan – where the Prussian Army broke
through into France in 1870 – and drive to the coast,
cutting-off the BEF from its logistic nodes in Normandy
and severing the northern French armies from their vital
rear areas. It was like a sickle strike – Sichelschnitt –
that would slash through the French border and then
envelop, dislocate, and demoralise the Allies, leading to
the potential for their operational defeat.
Even though this happy accident did something to
recommend Manstein’s plan to some of his sceptics like
Halder, there was no doubt that it remained inherently
risky. Manstein’s and Guderian’s own superior in Army
Group A, Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, remained
unconvinced. The head of Army Group B, which had
also been designated for the offensive, Generaloberst
Fedor von Bock, protested personally to Halder. He
argued that the plan did much to break the ‘frontiers of
reason,’ pointing-out that the relatively few mechanised
divisions would be crammed together on the little roads
of the Ardennes and prone to elimination from the air.
Flanks would be exposed, the logistic train stretched,
and the tip of the spear could itself be cut-off and
defeated by the larger and theoretically more mobile
Allied armies before the infantry and artillery came up
in support. Von Bock seemed to allege that much would
have to rely on Allied error and inaction.
Allied Inertia & Plan D
Mainstein’s planning was accompanied by further,
divisional-level organisational innovations by General
Heinz Guderian. Guderian was one of the few
senior German generals who grasped the potential
of new military technologies. He proposed that the
Wehrmacht’s mechanised divisions could operate
independently, coordinating with the Luftwaffe for
fire support rather than waiting for the artillery in
their horse-drawn carts. Guderian also suggested that
waiting for the infantry to secure the gains won by the
panzers was otiose, being willing to sacrifice security
to make the most of the shock-value of his motorised
divisions’ speed. One of the very few areas in which the
German armoured divisions could be said to be superior
to those of the Allies, namely in their widespread
incorporation of radio communication, would ease
coordination and reduce tactical friction.
Whilst some German generals were skilfully devising the
best way in which to overcome their strategic limitations
with a bold operational plan, the Allied high command,
led by France’s aged General Maurice Gamelin, seemed
structurally unable to capitalise upon their considerable
advantages in almost every area. A lack of initiative,
communication, and thorough appreciation of their
own structurally positive position plagued the Allied
top brass throughout the dramatic summer of 1940. It
would also become apparent that months of German
information operations that had deceptively projected
an image of mechanised might, modernity, and power
had contributed to a weakness of spirit that eventually
metastasised into defeatism. This was especially clear
on the part of the French, whose tumultuous, factional,
and unhappy domestic politics did little to prepare the
country for victory.
The viability of this plan, dependent as it was
to a great extent on a successful, operationallevel act of deception, was aided by the so-called
Mechelen Incident. On 10th January 1940, a German
reconnaissance plane crash-landed near Maasmechelen
in Belgium. One of the officers on board happened to
have a copy of the outline of Halder’s original plan to
strike into France through the Low Countries. Despite
his attempts to destroy such a precious document,
enough could be deciphered for the still-neutral
Belgians to warn the Dutch, French, and British of
Germany’s apparent intent. This news fed into existing
Allied assumptions, and would contribute to what
would come to be some catastrophic planning decisions
later in the spring.
The Allied willingness to fight a defensive war, however,
was in some respects quite reasonable. Both France and
Britain, as demonstrated in the previous generation, had
the capacity to win a long war against the more isolated
Germany. There was little incentive to take risks or to
think anew. France had invested considerable resources
in the construction of the Maginot Line, a series of
concrete fortresses and defensive positions stretching
from Switzerland to Belgium, making its generals think
that any war of attrition on the Franco-German border
could not but be to the Allies’ advantage. The Mechelen
Incident seemed to confirm the likelihood that, deterred
by the Maginot Line and unable to move through
the Ardennes – an impossibility as Gamelin himself
declared – Germany would attack through the low-
In this respect, contrary to his own fears, he would
come to be proved almost entirely right.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
lying and easily-crossed farmlands of Flanders. This was
apparently a lesson from history, but it was a lesson that
taught men like Manstein something else entirely.
The Allied plan, which was largely determined by the
French as the largest member of the coalition on land,
was therefore to meet Germany head-on in the Low
Countries. This would not only have the benefit of
meeting the imagined Wehrmacht Schwerpunkt with
the combined mass of Allied might, but would also
ensure that the war would be fought beyond France’s
vital industrial areas in the north of the country. On 20th
March, Gamelin issued what would become the plan
enacted when the Third Reich struck, an amendment to
his original ‘Plan D’. The ‘D’ stood for the River Dyle, a
waterway in Belgium to the east of the capital, Brussels,
that would form the Allied defensive line. The so-called
‘Breda Variation’ to this plan saw the French 7th Army,
which was previously designated as the strategic reserve
and deployed, as chance would have it, in the vicinity
of the city of Reims within striking distance of the
Ardennes, move to the Dutch city of Breda.
Thus, imagined Gamelin, the extreme left of the Allied
line would be strengthened and The Netherlands saved
from German conquest. The gap that the redeployment
of the 7th Army created was never plugged. Allied
grand strategy played right into the hands of the
German forces that were being concentrated just over
the Franco-Belgian border as spring became summer.
The defensive mentality that gripped the highest
levels of the Allied command also contributed to the
demotivation of the French and British forces under
them. A can-do, offensive spirit was discouraged, a
mindset demonstrated at the very outset of the war
in the form of the pitiful Saar Offensive, which was
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abandoned after barely two weeks. What would
become known as the ‘Phoney War’ saw many British
and French formations spend their time constructing
the ‘Gort Line’ – the expansion of the Maginot Line
along the Belgian border to the coast – with all too little
attention devoted to serious combat training.
Captain A. E. Wilkinson of the 2nd Battalion, The
Gloucestershire Regiment – who was invalided-out
before Cassel – gives a summary of the battalion’s
state of training and activity during the Phoney War.
The battalion was originally fortunate to be in General
Bernard Montgomery’s 3rd Division when it was
deployed to France in October 1939. Until December of
that year, they practised some manoeuvres and trench
relief exercises. They then served for six days on the
static and inactive line of contact in January.
The remaining months until May saw them given
over to ‘field work,’ giving the battalion time for
some ‘platoon and company training and long route
marches.’ The ‘first drafts of militiamen’ that joined the
battalion in 1940 required special three-week courses
on the basics of infantry fighting to bring them up to
standard. Capt Wilkinson’s description of some of the
basic skills practised over these months are immediately
relatable to any infantry soldier who has gone through
basic training: ‘all round protection at all times;
dispersal of troops at all times (5 yards between men in
sections).’ Brigade-level training was prevented by the
demands of French agriculture, but the battalion was
at least able to practise obstacle crossing and fighting
in woods and forests. The lack of practising planning,
coordination and manoeuvre at a formation level
beyond the battalion is striking, and helps to explain
the occasionally chaotic and confused behaviour of the
Allies when Germany eventually struck.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Germany Attacks
10th May 1940:
Fall Gelb and the Allied response.
The German main effort seeks to
sweep through the Ardennes to Sedan
whereas the Allied armies on the
Belgian border move North to meet
the German feint.
On 10th May 1940, at 0430 in the morning, Fall
Gelb was finally launched. The Luftwaffe struck
Allied airfields in France and immediately violated the
neutrality of Belgium and The Netherlands by starting
to destroy those countries’ air forces on the ground.
Surprise was on their side, but the second and third
waves suffered heavily from Allied anti-air gunnery.
Gliders were used to insert German paratroopers onto
the top of the allegedly impregnable Belgian border
fortress of Eban-Emael, which fell within the day.
The panzer divisions also rolled forward into the
Ardennes. They were actually spotted by the French air
force, but this movement was incorrectly identified as
a feint, seeing that the German Army was marching
across the Dutch and Belgian borders, exactly as
the Allied High Command expected. Unquestioning
adherence to preconceived notions of German strategy
were about to prove catastrophic.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Dutch strategy was to use the many waterways crisscrossing their low-lying homeland as linear defensive
obstacles from which an attacker could be delayed and
key cities like The Hague and Rotterdam protected.
The Germans sought to overcome this by landing on
a number of airfields. Landings around The Hague
and Rotterdam, however, failed. Spirited Dutch
counterattacks retook these important locations from
the isolated and unsupported Fallschirmjäger. The
attacks on other airfields may have succeeded, but the
German paratroopers could do little other than to dig in
and wait for relief given that the RAF was used to crater
the airfields to deny their immediate reinforcement.
The advancing Germans, however, made rapid progress
in the North. The Grebbe Line was abandoned on 12th
May but the withdrawal to the New Water Line failed
to delay the advancing enemy sufficiently, given that
one bridge remained undestroyed. Two days later,
Rotterdam was surrounded and the central government
was in flight to London. The Dutch Army’s willingness
to defend the city was finally broken after an air raid
killed hundreds of civilians. Just as the French 7th Army
started to arrive at the city of Breda a few score miles
South of Rotterdam, The Netherlands capitulated.
Across the border in Belgium, Plan D was being put
into effect. The majority of the German forces that
formed this part of their feint were infantry, advancing
into Belgian just like the army of the Second Reich in
1914. Forward elements of the French 3rd and 2nd
Light Mechanised Divisions managed to inflict serious
harm on what little German armour that did come
against them. The superior French machines and largercalibre guns clearly demonstrated which European
power actually had the technical edge. The French
were only forced back in some instances after German
infantry managed to infiltrate the villages in which the
mechanised units were bivouacked, attacking crews
rather than their vehicles.
Shortly after entering Belgium, the BEF adopted its
pre-planned series of defensive positions along the
River Dyle. These it held successfully, frustrating
German attempts to get across. On 16th May, the
Allies withdrew to a line along the River Escaut. Again,
this linear obstacle, which could be relatively easily
defended with the flat terrain offering little cover to
the attacker, his movement channelled by roads and
bridges, was held successfully until 21st May.
It came as something of a surprise to many men of the
BEF, therefore, when they were ordered to withdraw
again. They were ordered to withdraw because,
successful though the Allied effort had been in Belgium,
the real war was not being fought in Belgium at all.
The impact of the German breakthrough at Sedan. The BEF and French armies in the North became cut-off
from their means of supply and their higher command.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
On 10th May, as Allied eyes were drawn to the Low
Countries, the German Army Groups A and B, consisting
of the cream of Germany’s modern mechanised
capability, moved through the Ardennes. Their route
was confined to four roads, along which a total of
41,140 vehicles would have to move. Initial progress
was not without pain. The Belgian Army resisted stoutly
– using the terrain of the Ardennes to good effect – and
there was a real risk that the attack timeline would be
compromised. Had Allied air power been brought to
bear, what was briefly the longest traffic jam in Europe
could have become Europe’s longest tomb.
The Allies, however, failed to appreciate the true nature
of the situation at hand so the Germans were able to
press on, heading for exactly the area where the French
7th Army could have been deployed to stop them.
The panzers reached the River Meuse on 13th May,
precisely as planned. Massive air raids represented
the shaping action for the crossing, having a greater
psychological impact on the French defenders than
the physical damage they caused. The strategic shock
caused by the Germans’ swift penetration to the Meuse
was evident in the mass psychosis that broke out
The noose tightens. Once the panzers reached the coast, they swung North in an attempt to destroy the now isolated
BEF and northern French armies.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
among French troops at the Fond Dogot wood near the
town of Bulson. Officers claimed that they had received
orders to withdraw, and men reported sightings of
Germans all around them.
Yet no such orders had been given and the Germany
Army was still miles away. Allied armies that had
grown bored and demoralised during the Phoney War
were clearly having trouble adjusting to the reality of
impending combat.
By 14th May, the Germany Army had managed to build
a bridge across the Meuse, having already crossed and
secured the far bank. The next day, Winston Churchill
was woken by his French opposite number on the
telephone, who, a mere five days into the Battle of
France, declared the front broken at Sedan and his
country defeated. The Allies may certainly have been
militarily on the back-foot in the central sector, but
the French political elite had already translated this
into total strategic collapse in their imaginations. The
war did not have to be won on the battlefield, when it
could be lost in the mind.
Fighting was indeed still fierce. Some French formations
stood their ground and fought well, even launching
temporarily-successful local counter-attacks, notably the
action at Montcornet under the command of a certain
Charles De Gaulle. The town of Stonne, moreover,
changed hands almost twenty times before the
Germans finally secured it. Nonetheless, with General
Guderian ignoring the German High Command’s desire
for him to wait at the bridgehead for infantry support,
the panzer divisions rolled westwards. Their objective
was the Channel coast.
There was no substantial Allied fighting formation
standing between Sedan and the sea. The French
even kept the bulk of their fighting strength in this
sector fixed on the Maginot Line, apparently expecting
the Germans to launch themselves against heavy
fortifications rather than to keep pushing against an
open door. On 20th May, the Germans reached the
coast. This was an especially critical development
for the BEF. The lines of supply to the British troops
in Belgium stretched all the way back to ports like
Cherbourg in Normandy, so chosen as to insulate the
BEF’s logistics from Luftwaffe attack.
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Shortly after the risk of encirclement and total
destruction became apparent, the BEF was ordered to
withdraw to Dunkirk. It was becoming all too clear that
evacuation by sea was the only way out, and potentially
the only way to keep Britain in the war. The first troops
started to be taken off the beaches on the 26th May.
During these crucial summer days, the BEF fought a
series of tactically-successful delaying actions through
Belgium. One water-line would be held by one
formation, allowing another to echelon through, before
the drill was repeated. The total mechanisation of the
BEF enabled units to move quickly, both to the beaches
and to new defensive locations with time to dig in,
at least to some extent. Credit should also be paid to
the French 1st Army, who held the city of Lille and its
environs until 1st June, fixing German forces that would
otherwise have pursued the retreating BEF.
The withdrawal of the BEF was also assisted by what
became known as the ‘Hitler Halt Order.’ On 24th May,
the advancing panzers were ordered to stop in the vicinity
of Arras and forbidden to move beyond a line stretching
from Lens-Bethune-Aire-St Omer-Gravelines. The order
in fact came from von Rundstedt – an original sceptic
of Manstein’s plan – rather than the Führer, who only
ratified it. It was justified on the basis that the forward
divisions were becoming over-extended and insecure, as
the few successful Allied counter-attacks were starting
to suggest. General Guderian was furious, realising that
any delay risked the delivery of the final coup de grâce.
Fundamentally, security had to be sacrificed to speed for
the plan to work in full. The order was not lifted until
mid-afternoon on the 26th May.
The German delay bought vital time for the BEF to
secure the south-western flank of its withdrawal corridor
to Dunkirk. Perhaps the most important action in this
respect was the movement of 145 Brigade to the hilltop
town of Cassel. This commanding height sat on the axis
of advance of the panzers, on the road leading directly
to Dunkirk. There were still hundreds of thousands of
men of the BEF to evacuate from the beaches. As the
noose tightened from both the North-East and the
South-West, the next few days would be crucial.
The defenders of the Dunkirk pocket were about to
determine whether the war would be lost, or whether
Britain would fight-on to a final, though distant, victory.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Allied Error,
German Luck?
France’s General Gamelin gave Winston Churchill
three reasons why the Allied armies collapsed so
catastrophically in the summer of 1940. He cited
‘inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment,
inferiority of method.’ As the contemporary German
military historian Karl-Heinz Frieser, among others, has
pointed out, however, ‘today we know only the third
reason was accurate.’ What Frieser came to call ‘the
Blitzkrieg Legend’ is a cloak that has come to cover
a litany of errors among the Allied High Command
rather than an accurate analysis of plans and events on
the Western Front. The term ‘Blitzkrieg’ was not even
coined by the German Army, but by Time magazine on
25th September 1939 as a sensationalist description
of the Polish campaign. The Blitzkrieg myth came to
serve both sides. It suited the German self-image of
superiority, and gave Allied leaders a convenient excuse.
The Allies failed fully to understand the terrain, to
work-through German most-likely and most-dangerous
courses of action, and to develop a comprehensive
intelligence picture that should have led them to
challenge their assumptions. The French political as
well as military chain of command had also been
all too influenced by sustained German information
operations, which successfully over-sold their army’s
capability, thereby demoralising their opponents. Even
though the British had experimented with combinedarms, armoured manoeuvre in the 1930s – arguably
first demonstrated with success at Cambrai in 1917 –
they failed to adopt an offensive spirit and to put this
doctrine into practice. A failure of ambition chippedaway at Allied morale. Initiative was simply surrendered
to the Germans.
Yet the Germans were more than lucky, even if
Allied grand strategy played right into their hands.
Bewegungskrieg – a war of manoeuvre – was an old
Prussian philosophy, and they were institutionally far
more willing to grant initiative to lower-level leaders,
the inspiration for the modern doctrine of Mission
Command. Risk was consciously embraced by men
like Manstein and Guderian, who developed a realistic
appreciation of the opposing sides’ strengths and
weaknesses, recognising how to turn one against the
other. Rommel’s radios famously, and mysteriously,
failed when he was ordered to halt early-on in the
campaign when it was feared he was becoming overextended. Exceptional German commanders capitalised
on success, sacrificing security for speed, appreciating
that they had as great a psychological effect on their
foe as they had a physical one.
The summer of 1940 fundamentally shows that, even if
one side has profound advantages on paper, wars are
still fought and won on the battlefield.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Cassel
Location and Opposing Forces
…it is a site that has been the scene of
many battles…right back to the Middle
Ages and no doubt beyond them…It
is a small town of about two thousand
inhabitants, perched on top of and
around a hill which rises some five
hundred feet above the surrounding
flat plain of French Flanders, an area of
country which for miles is as flat and
featureless as the palm of one’s hand…
If an army retreating to the north French coast from
the interior were to need a defensible location upon
the rolling plain of Flanders from which to delay their
enemy, they could do no better than Cassel. The hill
dominates the surrounding land, offering observation as
far as the human eye can see. It is a natural fortress.
Cassel is a small, narrow ridge that runs approximately
3.5 km West to East. Mont Cassel itself rises to a
maximum of 177m at the centre of the modern village.
The feature then falls irregularly to the location where it
is bisected by the main thoroughfare to Dunkirk, before
rising again to a maximum height of 160m to form the
Mont des Recollects. It is an asymmetric saddle, the
Mont de Recollects being the pommel.
Lt Col Gilmore, Commanding Officer 2 GLOSTERS,
recalling Cassel as a POW in 1941
Mont Cassel. As viewed from the South West between Zuytpeene and Bavinchove.
The centre of the photograph approximates to the area that would be held by D Coy, 2
GLOSTERS. The hill’s gradient is gentler to the South than the North, but more wooded
and pock-marked with re-entrants and some hidden sharp rises. (Photograph: JMW)
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The view over the plain of French Flanders. From near the centre of Mont Cassel,
over the rooftops of the village. Even on a wet day with low cloud, its excellent arcs of
observation are evident. Bavinchove is just visible in the far ground to the right; Oxelaëre
closer to the centre. (Photograph: JMW)
The land around it all but uniformly flat, open farmland,
which is peppered by the occasional copse, farm, and
small village. Flanders abounds with streams, rivers,
and canals of varying widths and depths, the closest
of note to Cassel being the little Peene Becque to the
South West. Many of these water features have steep
banks, making them hard for vehicles to ford. Bridges
and roads therefore remain vital for armour to move
with ease and speed in a landscape that can seem to be
natural ‘tank country.’
Approached from the South, Cassel at first rises gently
and steadily from neighbouring villages like Oxelaëre.
Within a few hundred metres of the first houses of the
village, however, the ascent becomes far steeper. Like
the entirety of the ridge, the southern edge of the town
is wreathed in woodland, orchards, and market gardens.
The South is also marked by a series of re-entrants, and
one large bowl – known as la Cornette – abutting the
main road before the Mont des Recollets. The south
eastern flank of the Mont des Recollets is far more
regular than Mont Cassel, though generally steeper.
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When approached from the North, Cassel’s incline is
sharper. There are fewer re-entrants, and the north
western edge of the feature is less wooded – today as
also it was in 1940 – thereby exposing an outlying farm
building which sits close to a dramatic bend in the main
road into the village from the West. This road, which
is joined just within the village limits by another main
road heading up the hill from Bavinchove, cuts the
urban area of Cassel in two. It then bends sharply on
the outskirts of the village when followed along to the
East, before following the natural contours of the land
to form a crossroads with the road to Dunkirk. There are
also a number of tracks and lanes running North-South
that offer routes into Cassel.
Above all, even the briefest of map consultations
would show that Cassel would offer the Allies a strong
position from which to defend their southern flank
during the retreat to the coast in 1940. This helps
to explain why the village had already been bombed
before it briefly became the home of 145 Brigade, and
why the 6th Panzer Division would come to be headed
straight for it.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
145 Brigade
On the 15th May 1940, Lieutenant Colonel
Somerset, Commanding Officer of 2nd Battalion the
Gloucestershire Regiment, was put in charge of 145
Brigade just outside the historic battlefield of Waterloo
in Belgium. The brigade’s role was to protect the
southern flank of the BEF. Overwhelmed, and with the
Allied command thrown entirely off-guard by the nature
of the German offensive, the brigade was soon on the
retreat along with the rest of the BEF.
A near hundred-mile withdrawal took place over the next
fortnight. The brigade fought a stout delaying action
at the Escault Canal and were badly attacked by Stukas
outside of the town of Tournai. Initially on their way to
defend Calais – still another 85 miles’ away – they came
to be suddenly diverted to the town of Cassel.
The newly named Somerforce – basically a mixture of
whatever units were in the area – was created on 24th
May and consisted of the below (other units previously
under Lt Col Somerset’s command having been
detached at various points in the campaign).
•
2nd Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment (2
GLOSTERS)
•
4th Battalion the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire
Light Infantry (4 Oxf & Bucks LI)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
367 Battery, 140th Field Regiment
5th Regiment the Royal Horse Artillery (5 RHA)
209 & 203 Anti-Tank Batteries
100 & 226 Field Company of the Royal Engineers
223 Field Park of the Royal Engineers
143 Field Ambulance Unit
151 Light Anti-Air Battery
Two Companies of Machine Guns from 4th
Battalion the Cheshire Regiment
The GLOSTERS had suffered on the retreat from
Waterloo and so rode into Cassel with roughly 35
officers and around 675 men. They were a regular front
line infantry battalion who had in tow a small amount
of 1 and 2 pounder (pdr) anti-tank guns. These had
similar attributes to the Boys anti-tank rifle, which is
described below.
Perhaps the most important weapon of the coming battle
for Somerforce, however, was the 18 pdr guns held by
the 140th Field Regiment and 5 RHA. Designed initially
in 1904, they fired over 99 million rounds of ammunition
on the Western Front alone during the First World War.
Despite its age, this gun was an excellent weapon and its
84mm calibre could do significant damage to the German
armour that came against it in 1940.
140 Regiment 18pdr. Covering the D916/D933 junction into Cassel (the area of the crossroads near Mont des Recollects)
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
6th Panzer Division in convoy around the French town of Lumbres, 26th May 1940.
Note the use of the Swastika as an aerial recognition device.
The Boys anti-tank rifle carried by 209 and 203 AntiTank Batteries as well as organic to the two infantry
battalions was a large and heavy bolt action rifle with a
five-shot magazine. Its effective range of 100 yards may
have been limited, but it still made it a useful weapon
when deployed from a static defensive position,
especially a well-covered position. The Boys anti-tank
rifle could penetrate the armour of a Panzer 35(t) or
Panzer II – the dominant German platform of Fall Gelb
– but the Boys was useless against heavier tanks like the
Panzer IV.
The other weapon that would prove of great use to
Somerforce was the Vickers Machine Gun carried by the
Cheshire Regiment. Like much of the heavy equipment
at Cassel, it may have been an aged weapon, but it
was still a potent. Originally designed in 1912, it could
effectively fire 500 rounds a minute up to 2000 yards,
dominating the ground in front of it. It could therefore
be put to great use keeping infantry supporting the
panzers at bay. The GLOSTERS and Oxf & Bucks LI at
Cassel were also armed with the Bren Gun, which could
have a similar effect but had a shorter effective range of
600 yards.
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German Forces
The defenders of Cassel found themselves engaged by
two particular German Divisions. They faced the 20th
(Motorized) Infantry Division and the 6th Panzer Division.
On the 10th May, the armoured strength of 6th Panzer
Division consisted of 40 Panzer IIs, the tank that formed
the main workhorse of the invasion. It was designed
with a 20mm anti-tank gun and had a top speed of
25mph. Alongside this, they also had 30 Panzer IVs,
which would become the most numerous German tank
of the Second World War. Although a fine machine,
it still struggled to penetrate the armour of a French
Souma or British Matilda (the most common Allied
tanks in the Battle of France). The Germans were also
equipped with 89 Panzer 35(t)s, which were light tanks
captured during the invasion of Czechoslovakia. They
were a decent machine, but, by the summer of 1941,
production had ceased as the march of technology had
started to make them inferior vehicles.
A Panzer Division was intended to be an independent
combined arms unit. Alongside the various elements of
armour, therefore, 6th Panzer Division additionally had
four Motorised Rifle Battalions, an Artillery Regiment,
Reconnaissance and Engineer Battalions.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
This gave the division a respectable degree of fire
support and manoeuvre capability. Further, when
appreciating what the defenders of Cassel faced, it
should also be taken into account that the Germans
had near total operational air superiority by late May.
At Cassel, 145 Brigade would also face the German 20th
(Motorized) Infantry Division. This consisted of six Infantry
Battalions organised into two Regiments. It is, however,
worth remembering that although they used names like
‘Motorized Division,’ the majority of infantry transport
and, in particular, artillery, was still pulled by horse.
20th (Motorized) Infantry Division mostly found itself
engaged against 5th Battalion, the Gloucestershire
Regiment towards the north west of Cassel. 6th
Panzer Division, therefore, were the primary enemy
145 Brigade fought during the battle. Very few men or
machines were lost in the first few days of the French
campaign and those that were consisted primarily of
the inferior Panzer 35(t). As such, it is fair to say that
the GLOSTERS, Oxf & Bucks, and the other elements
of 145 Brigade found themselves facing a panzer
division that was all but at full strength, at the peak of
its capability, and supremely confident after the recent
successes of the first weeks of the invasion.
Reconstructing the
Battle of Cassel:
Problems with the
Source Material
Contemporary understanding of the battle fought at
Cassel in May, 1940, depends on what the past has
left. Many of the key commanders at Cassel, like Lt
Col Somerset, composed accounts of the action as
prisoners of war in Germany. Some of these war diaries
were written over a year after the event and tend to
come more from the GLOSTERS than the Oxf & Bucks,
potentially a result of better regimental record keeping
among Regular units or simply by chance. Bearing in
mind the considerable strain under which the men of
the BEF had found themselves, the rapid transitions
they subsequently endured, and the inevitable ‘fog
of war’ that shaped their understanding of what was
happening around them on the day, it is important to
be especially conscious of the vagaries of the human
mind and memory. The major outline of events may
be sound, but the details less so. The reasons given
as to why things turned out the way they did will also
generally only ever be partial: the result of a particular
perspective, to which certain things would have been
unknown or even unknowable.
One must always, therefore, treat the source material
cautiously. It is generally best to consult multiple sources
– especially if they bear no authorial connection or
shared influence – and then to draw conclusions. Even
this, however, can have issues. Below are two examples
of the kind of problems that can arise.
First, on the way to Cassel, the GLOSTERS were
attacked by Stukas just outside Tournai and lost many
men. A Coy were especially hard hit, meaning the
defenders of Cassel would come to be left with little
or no reserve units. During the attack, 2Lt Fane tells us
that there were roughly two hundred attack planes at
Tournai. Capt Wilkinson, however, claims there were
just nine. This is clearly a huge discrepancy. The reasons
behind it could nonetheless be quite simple.
The GLOSTERS convoy outside of Tournai would have
been vast. All sources also talk about the difficulty
of movement due to the French army and retreating
civilians on the road. First, therefore, one has to
question from where were Fane and Wilkinson viewing
this action? Secondly, did they view the Stukas in attack
formation or group formation? Before an attack the
Stukas would fly in Group Formation in a maximum
of thirty. Whilst attacking, they normally would be in
groups of three. At no point, then, would the Stuka
formation ever number two hundred. But then what
about fighter aircraft protecting the bombers? One
could continue this line of questioning for some time.
The example here only exists to highlight such issues.
The point is that, if only one account were in existence,
it may be too tempting to accept it, rather than to
question it, let alone to challenge it. Our understanding
would consequently be even more constrained.
The second example that it would be interesting to
address is the question of how much German armour
was actually destroyed by the defenders of Cassel. Three
quarters of the way through the battle, Lt. Watson of
the Oxf & Bucks LI tells us that thirty-five enemy tanks
had been destroyed. Some estimates put the number in
excess of a hundred of Watson, whilst some estimates
are in the low teens. Why could this be?
First, one simply needs to look towards the interests
these officers may have had. Obviously, it serves the
British and the regiments involved to exaggerate the
numbers of enemy tanks destroyed, as much as it would
make sense for the infamous German propaganda
machine to downplay the success of any enemy
operation. Secondly, it needs to be considered what
‘destroyed’ actually means. Maybe the tank needs to be
a flaming wreck. Does disabling a tank by blowing the
track off count as destroyed? There is every chance that
these would be repaired later on if they were recovered.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
A sketch map of the positions held in the north western periphery of Cassel by B Coy, 2 GLOSTERS, drawn by Capt
HCW Wilson. The map gives a sense of the inaccuracies that creep into the memory with the passage of time. Capt Wilson
captures the sense of the Coy’s position very well, but the farm building in which he places 10 Plt should be far closer to the
sharp bend in the road, rather than in 12 Plt’s arcs of fire. His description of D Coy’s position also fails to capture the scale of the
area they occupied, and the broken nature of the ‘park like’ ground they held. The road leading down to Bavinchove – a major
route – is also entirely omitted. It should start approximately opposite B Coy’s HQ building, snaking down to the South West.
(Photograph courtesy of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum.)
Again, this point only exists to highlight problems with
the source material and to encourage the reader to
think-through what the account they are reading may in
fact be describing.
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Finding an unblemished and completely reliable account
from any action in history is impossible. Everyone has
their personal bias and differing viewpoints. This of
course does not mean that such accounts are not highly
valuable. It merely means that they should always be
treated with caution and questions asked about the
points they raise.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The Battle of Cassel
The enemy tanks continued to press at
many points and reports kept coming in
over the phone that tanks were breaking
in here or had knocked down a road
block there. All I could do was to shout
back on the phone to build it up again
and reinforce at that point...
Lt Col Somerset, Commander 145 Brigade, 27th May 1940
Photograph reputed to be of German soldiers
advancing on Cassel. The exact date is unknown, but the
apparently largescale presence of infantry may suggest that
it was taken aften the tank-heavy initial assault of 27th May.
The vanguard of 2nd Battalion, The Gloucestershire
Regiment, rolled into Mont des Recollets at 0800hr
on 25th May 1940. This is where the upmost hill spur
begins to flatten out to the east of Cassel. At the
same time, the 4th Oxf & Bucks LI began to arrive. This
must have been a welcome sight to the GLOSTERS, as
these men – some of the thousands of Territorial Army
soldiers who found themselves shipped to France –
were tested and true comrades who had accompanied
them throughout much of the hundred-mile retreat
from Waterloo in Belgium. They had, of most note,
fought valiantly side by side at the Battle of the Escault
Canal. It was decided that the GLOSTERS would take
the West and South of Cassel, whilst the Oxf & Bucks
would take the North and East.
It was becoming clear that major developments were
afoot in the larger campaign. Lt Col Somerset records
being told in the early hours of the 25th that the
Germans were believed to have reached Boulogne
and, later in the day, that they intended to advance
on Dunkirk within days. It was clear that 145 Brigade
would be making their stand at Cassel. Lt Col Somerset
was ordered by General Mason McFarlane – who was
already ensconced in the town, commanding a scratch
brigade of various units before moving out – to control
a sector stretching from his boundary with 5 GLOSTERS
to the West to the town of Hazebrouck, sitting in the
Flanders plain to the south west of Cassel. Elements of
145 Brigade – notably 1st Buckinghamshire Battalion of
the Oxf & Bucks LI, a Territorial formation – had already
been despatched to Hazebrouck during the early hours
of the day, and would subsequently be reinforced.
Somerforce immediately began taking stock of the
situation at Cassel. The village had already been
bombed, and surviving accounts speak of the town
being littered with dead horses, damaged cars, and
the flotsam and jetsam of war and refugees. Lt Col
Somerset ordered a French liaison officer to ask all
remaining civilians to evacuate, but many seem to have
remained in the cellars of their houses throughout the
battle. The houses that had been evacuated, however,
offered a ready supply of food to the town’s new
defenders, and Capt Wilson of B Coy, for one, writes of
having a ‘magnificent meal’ on his first night at Cassel.
With respect to firepower, 145 Brigade was at a slight
disadvantage compared to the German armour, artillery
and heavy mortars they knew would be coming their
way. More positively, however, they discovered some 18
pounder guns, other anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft pieces,
and a company of machine gunners from a Territorial
Army battalion of the Cheshire Regiment already in
the town, alongside a few French anti-tank guns and
with a few French machine gunners. Headquarters was
situated in the local bank and Lt Col Somerset and unit
commanders launched an extensive reconnaissance of
the surrounding area.
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19
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Opening Dispositions
When the recce teams returned, a plan was put in
place. For obvious geographical reasons, explained
above, it was clear that Cassel could become something
of a formidable fortress. A tight circular defence
of the town would be formed with the outmost
buildings being occupied. This would allow an almost
360-degree view of the approaching enemy forces in
the surrounding countryside. A few select buildings
local to each Company sector would be reinforced and
converted into tank proof shelters. Cassel would be
turned into the ultimate anti-tank obstacle.
B Company held the north west flank, with 10
Platoon occupying an isolated farmhouse some forty
yards in front of the main line. One of Cassel’s major
thoroughfares runs through this sector from the West,
the main road to Calais. This was promptly barricaded
with anti-tank obstacles. These were then covered by
a small party of French and British machine guns along
with a small anti-tank gun detachment. The main
defensive position of the Company – held by 11 and 12
Platoons – consisted of a line cottages and small houses
running along the road. Some sections were pushed out
into the open ground in front of the houses in order to
command all approaches.
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C Company took the south east sector, holding the
boundary with the neighbouring Oxf & Bucks. This
area offered the least desirable location with respect
to observation, as it was impeded by numerous walled
gardens with the undulating and wooded land of
Cassel’s southern slope failing to offer the kind of
advantages its height would suggest. This sector did,
however, possess many lateral and covered passageways
which were hugely advantages for communication
purposes. The sharp ascent in some areas of this sector
was also a useful foil to the German panzers, with the
little lanes able to be easily commanded by anti-tank
weaponry.
Contemporary view from Rue des Ramparts. Within C
Coy’s lines, looking towards the direction of enemy threat.
The foliage would of course have been different in 1940, but
it is nonetheless clear to see how the nature of the ground
in this sector created complications for the defender, with
covered approaches and limited visibility. (Photograph: JMW)
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
D Company held the south west sector of the town
overlooking a wooded area. Their perimeter was tighter
than the other companies as the land dropped off
steeply and the wood also dictated positioning. They
were given the mortar platoon in case the woods or
sharp rises were used by enemy infantry as a relatively
well-covered route through which to assault. They were
also given responsibility for the road leading into Cassel
from Bavinchove.
A Company had been badly battered on the retreat
from Waterloo. The GLOSTERS had lost seventy men
in the aerial attack outside of Tournai. The majority
of these casualties had come from A Coy. At Cassel,
therefore, they initially formed the reserve and were
co-located at Battalion Headquarters in the vicinity
of La Place Dunkirk (the modern Place du Général
Vandamme). A Coy’s role, however, came to evolve
throughout the battle. The square, positioned
conveniently close to Brigade Headquarters, was also
the location of the Carrier Platoon, designated as a
mobile reserve for the battle.
The opening dispositions of 4th Oxf & Bucks are
unfortunately vaguer, owing to the apparent lack of
detailed records coming from the officers and men
involved. The accounts of the GLOSTERS speak with
no real certainty of the actions of the Oxf & Bucks –
suggesting what a close fight Cassel became, with
individual companies rigorously focused on their own
sectors – although one would imagine that C Coy at least
enjoyed the mutual support of interlocking arcs of fire
with the Oxf & Bucks company to their left. It is clear,
however, that the 4th Oxf & Bucks held the East of the
town, from ‘the keep’ near the highest point, to the Mont
des Recollects. One company was also pushed forward to
the village of Bavinchove at night on 26th May.
Once the companies were in position, they began
digging trenches and fortifying houses. They also
took pains to site their crucial anti-tank assets to
where they would be able to have maximum effect,
covering the roads that would offer the German tanks
all too tempting a rapid route into 145 Brigade’s main
defensive area.
The evening of the 25th/26th May proved to be
relatively quiet. Patrols managed to link up with another
Gloucestershire Regiment Battalion, the 5th, up the
road at Ledringhem. The 5th would very soon be facing
challenges of the most extreme kind, similar to that of
their brethren of the 2nd battalion. At day break on the
26th, a small patrol was sent out from Cassel with an 18
pdr. They returned a few hours later without the useful
weapon. They had destroyed two heavy German tanks
in an ambush, but then took a direct hit from a third.
So valuable were such weapons that another patrol
was organised to retrieve the 18 pdr but, once it was
brought back, it was indeed seen to be beyond repair.
Sketch map of defences of Cassel by Capt E Jones, Battalion Liaison Officer, 2 GLOSERS.
(Photograph courtesy of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum.)
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21
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The Blockhouse at Le
Peckel
At 1400 on the 26th May a message came through
from Brigade Headquarters for a blockhouse a few miles
north of Cassel, at the village of Hardifort looking out
on the road to Dunkirk, to be manned. Lt Col Somerset
records this to have been a suggestion that came down
from Division, apparently as a somewhat minimalist
reaction to the Belgian collapse, leaving all northern
approaches far less secure (Somerset, however, misdates
the formal Belgian capitulation in his diary: King
Leopold III surrendered on 28th May, not the 26th). The
only choice was for A Company, 8 Platoon to leave the
reserve and occupy the blockhouse.
An earlier reconnaissance had shown that the
blockhouse – built as part of the Gort Line – had no
doors, no proper slits and quite poor arcs of observation.
It was also full of refugees escaping the advancing
Germans. The blockhouse was very much still in a
state of construction and was even covered in wooden
scaffolding. To the West, a builders’ hut entirely blocked
the field of fire whilst frontal range to the south was 75
yards due to piles of building material left lying around.
To the East, an unfinished tank trap hampered vision
whilst the North was completely blind. There was also
a gaping hole on the southern side where there should
have been a steel door, the enemy, of course, being
expected to come through Belgium to the North.
Defence of the blockhouse, if one can even call it that,
was almost impossible. This was reported to Brigade
Headquarters but the reply came that the order stood
and the position must be held at all cost. So off trooped
8 Platoon and they arrived at 2145. Their first job was
to convince the refugees to leave and to take stock of
their situation. Defences, however, could not really be
improved until daylight.
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Early on the 27th May, the men received their only meal
of the ordeal. Tea, biscuits and fifty-six tins of meat
paste arrived by truck. After a quick replenishment, the
men got to work. Reinforced concrete and sandbags
were used to block the two entrances. The gaping
gun slits – it is not clear if these were unfinished or
poorly designed – were enclosed using more sandbags.
From these positions, the defenders could fire four
Bren guns and an anti-tank rifle. The scaffolding was
partially cut down to increase the field of fire and the
construction hut to the west was demolished for the
same reason. Cement was poured into the observation
tower on top of the bunker as this was nothing more
than a cavernous hole in the roof. The men of 8 Platoon
conducted this activity with the sound of fierce fighting
reaching them from Cassel. At 1800, the Germans
were seen advancing in open formation from the West,
approximately 600 yards away.
A heavy fire was immediately poured upon the enemy
and an hours’ long furious evening attack ensued, but
was easily beaten-off. Only one casualty, LCpl Ruddy,
was reported from this action and the rest of the
evening remained relatively quiet. At dawn on the 28th
May, the Germans launched another attack but this was
again fought off without loss or injury. Most worrying
of all, for the present, was that almost all the remaining
water ration had been used stabilising LCpl Ruddy. The
only point of interest for the rest of the day was the
observation of vast armoured enemy columns moving
around the east of Cassel in the distance. 2Lt Cresswell,
the officer commanding 8 Platoon, notes that this
caused much speculation as to what was happening to
the rest of the brigade, with whom there had been no
communication for two days.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
2Lt Cresswell, in an account he was able to write a few months later in
August 1940 as a prisoner of war, describes Wednesday, 29th May as
‘one of the worst days we had experienced in the blockhouse.’
2Lt Roy Cresswell,
commander of 8 Platoon, A Coy
2 GLOSTERS at the blockhouse.
He was awarded the Military Cross
for his dogged defence
Dawn broke without any activity by the enemy, but about 0900
hrs, a wounded British Arty Capt was seen hobbling on a crutch
round the west corner of the blockhouse, shouting ‘a wounded
British Officer here.’ I immediately answered him, but he replied
in lower voice, ‘Do not reply.’ When he reached the east side
he looked down at a dead German and said out loud ‘There are
many English and Germans like that round here.’ At the same
time he looked up at the roof of the blockhouse, an action
which seemed to indicate German presence on the roof. With
that he hobbled out of sight, leaving us all regretting that we
had been unable to help him.
The German plan was immediately made plain to us. Utilising
this distraction in the front, they had climbed up the scaffold
in the rear – they could not have used any builder’s ladder for
these had been destroyed on Monday. The cement had been
removed from the top of the Observation tower, a tin of petrol
poured on the contents used to block it and set on fire by a
hand grenade, whose explosion was the first real indication of
enemy action.
Gas-masks had to be worn until the fire and stream of smoke
could be controlled…
Some damp, heavy fabric was put across the entrance to the tower, and some dirty water that had collected in the
blockhouse was used to dampen the flames. This effort had to continue for hours but the Germans ultimately failed
to smoke-out the GLOSTERS. This episode was not, however, without some benefit. It gave 8 Platoon a cooking fire
and helped to banish the cold of the blockhouse.
Towards the evening of the 29th and into the next morning, several German cars were fired upon whilst heading
along the Dunkirk road. These were put out of action and the occupants killed. By the afternoon of the 30th May, a
concerted attack developed with a fire being set to the West as a distraction followed by an assault from the East.
The defenders withstood the initial attack but then heavy and accurate automatic fire came pouring through every
gun slit. The men persevered, but the Germans then brought heavier weapons to bear.
Cut-off from Cassel, which was now silent, exhausted, outgunned, and alone, 8 Platoon had no choice but to
surrender, even if they had considered a dash for Dunkirk in the night. 2Lt Cresswell concludes his recollections of
the defence by saying that ‘No account of this episode can be ended without a tribute to the men of my platoon…
Throughout the whole of our sojourn in the blockhouse, their morale, grit, fortitude and perseverance was excellent.
Despite the order of “1 hour on, 1 hour off” (resulting in little sleep) and the lack of food and water, they remained
cheerful throughout and fought well right up to the fall of the blockhouse.’
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23
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Zuytpeene and
Bavinchove
Moving back to the wider battle and 26th May, as if
losing 8 Platoon was not bad enough, Lt Col Somerset
ordered the rest of A Coy on their own mission to
Zuytpeene, accompanied by an anti-tank gun. Forces at
Cassel now had a reserve consisting only of the carrier
platoon. Running along the south east perimeter of
Cassel was a railway line. This was deemed – by Brigade
Headquarters – an excellent forward position at which
to stop, or at least to delay, the Germans. The reserve
D Company of the 4th Oxf & Bucks LI also went to
Bavinchove, a little way along the railway line. These
new dispositions created a wider defensive perimeter,
hopefully also dividing the strength of the German attack
by reducing their ability to concentrate force. Upon initial
inspection, a handful of French were already positioned in
the West but the East of the village of Zuytpeene offered
the best defensive opportunity with a thick railway
embankment, three houses and a crossroads.
The morning of the 27th May saw the French approach
Major Percy-Hardman – the officer commanding A Coy –
to discuss the best position for the anti-tank weapons at
their disposal. The French suggested a far from desirable
plan, which Maj Percy-Hardman declined, and so French
and British parted ways. On his way out, the French
officer mentioned that it did not really matter anyway as
they were only ‘armed’ with dummy practice shells. All
of this proved elementary as very soon nine Stuka dive
bombers swooped down on Zuytpeene and dropped
twenty-seven bombs on the town’s western end. The
French fled. French soil here would therefore only be
defended by British blood.
Less than an hour later, around 1000hr, Zuytpeene was
attacked by twenty tanks and in excess of a hundred
infantry. A few moments later, mortars and machine
gun fire poured down upon their position. In light of
the French flight, A Coy had been forced to tighten
their perimeter making any attempt to reach Battalion
Headquarters fruitless. It is important for the rest of
the battle, both at Zuytpeene and at Cassel as well as
elsewhere in 1940, to remember that at this stage the
British Army still only generally communicated by runner
and despatch rider. Only at brigade level upwards were
wired communications in consistent use.
Just an hour and a half into the German onslaught, word
was received that the Oxf & Bucks to A Coy’s left had
been pushed out of Bavinchove, following a short but
fierce fight. The advancing column of 6th Panzer Division
had been racing along the road from the town of St Omer
to Bavinchove and had been briefly held by the weight
of fire brought upon them from the Oxf & Bucks’ hasty
defensive positions. The German armour then began to
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Sketch map of A Coy at Zuytpeene by
Major Percy-Hardman, officer commanding.
(Photograph courtesy of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum.)
encircle the village, encouraging Capt Charles Clustom
– officer commanding D Coy 4th Oxf & Bucks LI – to
withdraw before he and his men became trapped. The
anti-tank gun that D Coy had positioned on the railway
line itself reportedly accounted for four German armoured
vehicles before the defenders escaped.
It is a reflection of how poorly the evolving situation
of the 27th was initially understood at Brigade
Headquarters, that an order was given for A Coy to
advance down the railway line and smash into the
German flank. Thankfully, communications with A Coy
were so poor that they never received this suicidal order
for an undermanned and already fixed company of light
infantry to attempt to overcome the leading units of a
German panzer division. By 1200, A Coy were formally
ordered back to Cassel but sadly this message did not
reach them either.
The heavy German attack on Zuytpeene continued
through to midday when the enemy began to penetrate
along the railway embankment. Sgt Gallagher moved
his 7 Platoon to the top of the exposed embankment.
This was a very risky manoeuvre but his bold plan
came off as the enemy retreated once again. Relentless
shelling, mortaring and machine gun fire raked the
remaining few men of A Coy for the rest of the day.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
By 1700, Sgt Gallagher and the few remaining men of
7 Platoon were the only ones left at their post. The few
other able-bodied men of A Coy were located in one
of the nearby houses that had formed the Company
Headquarters, tending the many wounded. At 1900,
two privates from the company arrived in Cassel, after
having had somehow fought and dodged their way
back to the town. They reported themselves the only
survivors. They were, however, wrong.
Their comrades continued to fight into the evening
of 27th May. A Coy had barricaded themselves in the
house where the casualties were being treated and
stood, fighting room to room. Eventually, the few
remaining survivors found themselves in the basement
with hand grenades rolling through the windows and a
company of enemy infantry swarming through the rest
of the house. Maj Percy-Hardman surrendered what was
left of his battered command around 1900.
Mont Cassel: 27th May
The early hours of the morning of 27th May had seen
Lt Col Somerset reinforce the garrison at Hondeghem,
in response to reports that the German front had
now reached his sector. Cassel was therefore soon
to become the outermost redoubt defending the
withdrawal of the BEF to Dunkirk. With daylight,
brigade spotters took full advantage of the excellent
arcs of observation from Cassel to identify the massing
German armour making its way to Bavinchove.
Somerset reports with satisfaction that his artillery was
able to do something to disrupt the attack, knocking
out a number of vehicles. The attack on Cassel proper
began shortly after the assaults launched against
Zuytpeene and Bavinchove, with 145 Brigade being
heavily attacked by mortars, Stuka dive-bombers, and
armoured vehicles of all description.
The Germans attacked against the full frontage of
the ridge, but initially sought to break-through by
assaulting the lower area of the feature between Mont
Cassel and Mont des Recollects, close to the location of
the crossroads with the road to Dunkirk. The elements
of the Oxf & Bucks holding this sector were rapidly
reinforced by the carrier platoon held in reserve, which,
combined with effective anti-tank gunnery, eventually
succeeded in keeping the Germans at bay. The attack
was nonetheless pressed with vigour throughout the
day. The Germans were clearly willing to do what they
could to maintain the momentum of their assault in
order to stop the BEF from escaping. One account, as
least, suggests that some vehicles did get through to
the Hardifort area, but there was critically no breakthrough in strength.
A short way over to the West, C and D Coys were also
coming under considerable pressure. C Coy reported a
barrage of mortar fire gradually creeping towards their
position. The mortar barrage grew heavier and heavier,
whilst a report of enemy armoured fighting vehicles
massing in front of their position was also received.
D Coy reported tanks rolling up the road towards
Company Headquarters. These had come from the
Bavinchove area, following the local defeat and
withdrawal of the Oxf & Bucks sent to hold the village.
Some enemy infantry was also seen coming out of the
wooded area in their sector. The road blocks previously
laid by brigade engineers were rapidly improved, and
145 Brigade’s artillery shelled enemy mortar positions
that had been located. Unfortunately, these had been
incredibly well positioned in the rolling and rising
ground to the south west, meaning that little damage
could be brought to bear upon the enemy.
By early afternoon, C Coy had destroyed at least four
German tanks. Communication between companies and
battalion and brigade were near impossible though as
the GLOSTERS were constantly pinned-down by accurate
sniper, machine gun and mortar fire. This meant that the
companies were essentially fighting as individual units
rather than as a unified fighting force. An advantage
for C Coy, however, was that an early negative had now
turned into a huge positive. It will be remembered that
C Coy’s view was poor due to the walled gardens and
woodland in and around their position. This no longer
mattered as it was clear where the Germans were:
everywhere. The walled gardens became perfect tank
hunting country and C Coy certainly made the enemy
pay in this location, most likely through the skilled
deployment of the Boys anti-tank rifle at relatively short
ranges, from concealed positions.
D Coy, whose ground presented more challenges to the
defender, were not faring as well, however. A major
turning point in the battle now might have taken place.
A German panzer broke through into the middle of
the company’s sector and apparently broke down. The
enemy could not be shifted and the tank promptly
became its own mini-fortress right in the heart of the
line. This potentially gave the Germans a strongpoint
from which to suppress the defenders thereby
allowing them to rush into the village. Throughout the
afternoon, every time D Coy tried to outflank or destroy
the tank, mortar fire dropped precisely upon them and
caused considerable casualties. There is a suspicion
that the accurate mortar fire was the result of so-called
Fifth Columnist activities, a fear that stalked the BEF
throughout May 1940.
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25
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
German Panzer 35ts said to be approaching Cassel from the West. The exact date and time are unfortunately unknown.
Note, again, the use of the Swastika for aerial recognition purposes and the presence of infantry in support.
This episode appears to have had something of a
psychological as well as a physical tactical effect on D
Coy. This became apparent to the officer commanding
the neighbouring B Coy, Capt Wilson, when he saw
‘to my amazement about forty troops of D Company
and the Bn mortar platoon collected, standing like lost
sheep in the lane almost opposite my HQ.’
Thinking that something must have
happened to Cholmondeley (OC D Coy)
I managed to get all D Coy back into
the grounds into positions of some
sort. I found Cholmondeley in his HQ
surrounded by wounded. Whole of the
ground floor of the building (a huge
glorified pigeon-lift evidently built to
house the thousands of pigeons of some
prominent fancier) was covered
by wounded.
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Cholmondeley told me that his anti-tank
rifles were ineffectual against the tank
in the grounds, but I couldn’t get clear
information from him as to where exactly
the tank was; he was very much upset.
Went back to my HQ and got Pte Palmer
with one of our anti-tank rifles, Fane
who knew where the tank was and CSM
Robinson (who asked me to be allowed
to come with me) and the four of us
returned to D Coy area to attempt an
attack on the tank. We had just reached
a point where the tank could be fired
on and got the rifle into position when
two mortar bombs fell right among us.
They were followed by four others in
rapid succession. Pte Palmer was severely
wounded in the back and the anti-tank
rifle was blown goodness knows where.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
As it happened, after withdrawing back to the D
Coy Headquarters to see how else the tank could be
destroyed, Capt Wilson and his team saw that it had
become a smoking hulk, probably having been knockedout by brigade artillery. Nonetheless, this episode
suggests how, in intense, close-fought actions, shock
and the temporary breakdown of command risks having
catastrophic effects. War is ever human.
After D Coy had managed to reorganise themselves,
it became apparent that German infantry were trying
to establish themselves in a building on the southern
perimeter of the company position, probably in the
building that now houses a small Catholic college. A
brisk bayonet charge was ordered and the Germans
fled. This was the final significant action of the day and
the Germans were reported to be pulling back on all
sides by 1900.
As evening fell, Lt Col Somerset ordered leaflets that
had been dropped by the Luftwaffe that afternoon –
depicting the shrinking Allied front and calling on 145
Brigade to surrender – to be collected and destroyed.
Ineffective though the German information operation
proved to be, it nevertheless depicted the wider situation
accurately. That said, the actions of 145 Brigade on 27th
May had prevented the noose around the neck of the
BEF from drawing yet tighter at a critical juncture in the
wider campaign. Cassel had held. The German advance
had been delayed by a day and their losses amounted to
anywhere between 25-40 tanks, a significant proportion
of the panzer regiments ranged against the defenders.
Mont Cassel: 28th –
29th May
The evening of the 27th and then the daytime of
the 28th May proved to be eerily quiet compared
to the previous twenty-four hours. The Germans,
however, were not dormant and constructed a series of
machinegun nests as close to the 145 Brigade perimeter
as they could, under the cover of darkness. Half rations
also managed somewhat miraculously to reach the
defenders of Cassel, although this was to be the last
replenishment of the ordeal.
Sniper and mortar fire continued with great accuracy
at regular intervals, feeding fears of Fifth Columnists
working within the town. Aircraft intermittently
attacked fortress Cassel but mostly did battle with the
remaining few anti-air defences. The Germans began
to probe B Coy’s sector from the north west for the first
time with tanks and infantry. These attempts appeared
half-hearted and were easily driven off by anti-tank and
machinegun fire from the company’s strong positions.
Meanwhile, the central square of the town was
reinforced and turned into a final redoubt ahead of the
final battle that was clearly coming.
Around 1000 on the morning of 29th May, however, a
despatch rider reached Lt Col Somerset’s Headquarters
with the order to withdraw to Dunkirk. Described by
Somerset as ‘badly shaken and somewhat incoherent,’
the despatch rider reported that he should have reached
Cassel the night before, but unfortunately got lost. The
fact that another rather desperate runner also arrived
with news that the 1st French Motorised Division were on
their way to relieve them at around this time shows how
confused the overall picture was becoming. Somerset
records his frustration that the withdrawal order was not
passed by wireless – such communications still existed
with Division and regular situation reports were being
sent from Cassel – noting that, had the order arrived on
time, he would have been confident in safely evacuating
most of his brigade.
Whilst the withdrawal was being planned at Brigade
Headquarters, the GLOSTERS, Oxf & Bucks and others
were faced with another stiff fight. The 29th May saw
another quiet start except for sporadic aerial assault and
light mortar fire. This was not to last. Heavy German
traffic was seen bypassing Cassel and moving towards
Dunkirk. The previous day’s rest had got the GLOSTERS
back into some form of fighting shape so they attempted
to engage this traffic in whatever way they could. The
remaining 18 pdrs were deployed accordingly and
fire opened on the Germans. From their lofty perch,
the defenders of Cassel could surely have seen that
something big was happening towards the coast.
The next German attack began with heavy tanks and
infantry rolling up the steep slopes of Cassel. They
were once again repelled by the GLOSTERS of B and D
Companies. B Coy, 10 Platoon, the platoon which was
holding a few farm buildings that sat at the extremity of
their sector and dominated the surrounding area, was
badly mauled, however. Unfortunately for them they were
the main target of the German aggression on the 29th.
A colossal, heavy, and accurate artillery bombardment
smashed into the farm compound. The few survivors
tried to retreat back to safe ground but were fixed on
position and cut-off from the rest of B Coy by accurate
machinegun fire.
At 1745, the brigade liaison officer finally arrived in the
GLOSTERS’ lines with the verbal order to withdraw. Lt
Col Somerset’s plan was for the brigade to concentrate in
stages on the Mont des Recollects, with the withdrawal
to the beaches led by the Oxf & Bucks, walking moreor-less in single file. A Company, 2 GLOSTERS, had been
destroyed at Zuytpeene, B Company suffered huge
casualties at the farmhouse, and D Company never
recovered from the tank which crept into their sector
midway through the battle. This meant that C Company
made up the bulk of the fighting men left in 2 GLOSTERS.
The company therefore formed the rear guard for the
initial escape, alongside men of the East Riding Yeomanry
who had found themselves at Cassel.
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27
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Taking care to deny all of the heavy equipment that had
to be left behind as innocuously as possible, lest the
Germans realise what was happening, the GLOSTERS
abandoned their positions at 2100. About forty surviving
wounded from the brigade were left in the vicinity of the
Brigade Headquarters in the care of a Medical Officer, it
being hugely impractical to remove them. Time was of
the essence. Lt Col Somerset realised that they would
have to reach the Dunkirk perimeter by daybreak were
they to have a chance to make it out. The defenders of
Cassel faced a long and deeply uncertain night.
The Battle of Cassel had now come to an end.
Aftermath
It was clear that fighting was no longer the idea and
that the defenders of Cassel had to make their way to
Dunkirk. They avoided all enemy action and as many
towns and villages as possible to reach their target. The
brigade, attempting to snake its way across the flat
Flanders plain, became almost immediately divided with
small groups getting lost or attempting to go their own
way. Only eight would make it out. The rest became
prisoners of war.
To follow the GLOSTERS, a hamlet was reached that could
not be skirted. It contained four well dug-in panzers.
The only option was to attack, but as they did so, the
GLOSTERS were flanked by another four hidden tanks.
The assault was called off but not before many men had
fallen. It was now daylight and it was decided that the
only chance of survival was to hide out in a nearby wood
and wait again for nightfall.
At 1130 on the 30th May, just three and a half
hours after taking cover in the woodland, Battalion
Headquarters was captured. Incredibly, despite the
Germans raking the wood with small arms fire all day and
repeated demands for the British surrender, the remaining
men survived until the following evening. At 2200 they
moved out for one final push to the coast and safety.
The men had not eaten for several days, water was
incredibly scarce and ammunition was worryingly low.
three miles they were halted by a long line of bunkers and
machine gun nests. For the surviving men there remained
only one option, but it was not to be surrender.
The GLOSTERS fixed bayonets and then, when the
word was given, the thirty remaining men carried out a
full-frontal charge upon the nearest two machine gun
nests. Ten enemy were killed whilst the rest fled. They
even took one prisoner. So dramatic was the action that
the occupants of another two machinegun nests ran for
their lives. The attackers then quickly slipped away into
the darkness.
28
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The River Yser runs East, then South, of Dunkirk. To
cross this obstacle would bring the few survivors within
twenty miles of the beaches and potential rescue. They
successfully forded it and they pressed on when suddenly
heavy fire opened up from a cluster of houses on their
right flank. A large body of troops appeared in front
of them and also opened fire. The same then occurred
on the left flank. Surrounded, taking heavy casualties
and absolutely exhausted, the few men who were left
surrendered at 0600 on 31st May 1940. Ultimately, the
GLOSTERS had lost 132 men dead, with 60 wounded,
and 475 captured and condemned to remain prisoners of
war for the duration of the conflict.
The evacuation from Dunkirk was quite a unique event in
the annals of military history. Was it a success for either
side? No. Was it a loss for either side? No. Of course
the Germans were victorious as they became masters of
mainland Europe after the Battle of France, but allowing
the BEF and thousands of French to escape represented a
massive missed opportunity in strategic terms. Destroying
the BEF could have forced an end to the war, and laid the
foundations for an enduring Nazi mastery of Europe.
The British Army left almost all of its out-dated equipment
on the beaches of France. This meant that the entire
army would be re-equipped with the kind of modern,
cutting-edge kit it had started to develop towards the end
of the 1930s. Almost all of the 18pdr artillery pieces, for
example, which had served the British so well for nearly
forty years, had now gone. These were all replaced by the
fearsome 25pdr gun, the best in class.
Fundamentally, though, equipment can be replaced whilst
men cannot. A total of 338,000 men were lifted from the
Dunkirk beaches by the night of the 3rd/4th June to fight
another day in North Africa, Italy and eventually to return
to the beaches of northern France. It is uncertain whether
or not the British Government would have sued for peace
had the Dunkirk pocket collapsed and the BEF been
captured, but it would have given the Germans a mighty
bargaining chip.
The success of the GLOSTERS, Oxf & Bucks, and others at
Cassel, the Warwickshires at Wormhout or the Norfolks
at Le Paradis cannot be measured in casualties inflicted,
tanks destroyed, and certainly not in land gained. Those
who sacrificed their freedom and their lives to keep the
Dunkirk pocket open had certainly won their day. It would
take many more years, but the fact that Britain stayed
in the war, and stayed in to fight, would ensure that
Europe would one day be liberated from Nazi tyranny.
If the Allied story of May 1940 cannot but be one of
strategic failure, it must also be recognised as a story of
a triumphant operational defeat, and the occasional, and
vital, tactical success.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The Defence of Calais
Every hour you continue to exist is of the
greatest help to the BEF. Government has
therefore decided you must continue to
fight. Have greatest possible admiration
for your splendid stand. Evacuation will
not (repeat not) take place, and craft
required for above purpose are to return
to Dover...
Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Brigadier Claude
Nicholson, commanding British Forces at Calais, 2100,
If Cassel was an example of a successful deliberate
defence, the chaotic stand at Calais is more a story of
dogged determination, grit, and valour in the face of
truly spirit-sapping odds. The decision to keep Brigadier
Nicholson’s forces in the port city was arguably more a
political choice than a sound strategic one. His forces
lacked their expected complement of equipment, and
were inserted into a situation that was already bordering
on the hopeless. Yet Churchill’s words can claim to
be more than rhetoric. The defence of Calais delayed
substantial German forces that would otherwise have
swept up the coast to the beaches of Dunkirk. The action
is occasionally referred to as the ‘sacrifice’ of the Rifle
Brigade. If it was, it was at least not entirely in vain.
25th May 1940
Map of Calais reportedly dating to the later 1930s.
Note the variation in street-size and design together with the varied urban topography
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29
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Calais and The
Opposing Forces
Calais is an historic port town. It is surrounded by canals
and other waterways and flat land to the East and South.
Movement into Calais is generally channelled by roads
given the many watercourses and damp agricultural lands.
To the West, there is a prominent rise. This offers excellent
arcs of observation across the entire town. The innertown is surrounded by a vast moat, over which there are
several bridges. The older areas of the port are dominated
by fortifications dating to the 1670s – Fort Risban – and
the urban terrain in 1940 was a mix of contemporary
and historic residential and industrial buildings, often
several storeys high and solidly-built. The tower of the
iconic town hall to the South of the moat and railway line
was, and remains, one of Calais’ tallest buildings. It gives
commanding views of the port and townscape.
The German forces that would come to attack Calais
consisted of the 10th Panzer Division. The division was
formed from the 7th Panzer Regiment, two regiments
of mechanised infantry, and supporting reconnaissance,
signalling, engineer and artillery assets. The 10th Panzer
Division was one of the crack formations of the German
Army that had broken through the Ardennes and
smashed the French front at Sedan. It had known nothing
but success. The reinforcement of Calais, however, had
forced a delay to a planned refit.
Calais was originally very lightly held by a few platoons
of light infantry and refugee French forces. By 19th May,
some road blocks had come to exist on the periphery
and anti-tank weaponry was deployed to key junctions.
From 22nd May, the units, predominantly consisting of
the Riflemen of 30 Infantry Brigade, that would come
to become Brigadier Nicholson’s defenders, started to
arrive. The principal formations, and their states, are
given below.
30
•
1st Battalion, The Queen Victoria’s Rifles. A
Territorial Army battalion of 566 personnel, the QVR
were based in Davies Street, central London. They
were a Motorcycle Reconnaissance Battalion, but
their vehicles failed to follow them over. Two-thirds
of their personnel were only equipped with pistols
and their Bren guns had also been left behind.
•
3rd Battalion, The Royal Tank Regiment. 3 RTR
had 21 Light Tank Mk VI and 27 Cruiser Tanks. In
the confusion caused by their late redirection to
Calais, the personnel train ended up in Dover and
their vehicles in Southampton. The dockworkers
and logistics staff demanded all the vehicles have
their fuel drained and all ammunition removed and
packaged. The guns also had to be stripped and
covered in preservative to comply with dangerous
goods regulations.
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7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Calais, looking back into the town from what remains of
Fort Risban. War damage means that most of the ‘old town’
is actually quite new. The tower of the town hall is the second
spire from the left. The pillbox close to the waterfront is a later
German construction. (Photograph: JMW)
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31
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
•
2nd Battalion, The Kings Royal Rifle Corps. 2
KRRC was a 750 strong Regular battalion, highly
trained as a Motor Infantry Battalion. Each platoon
consisted of four trucks. Each company had a scout
platoon in Universal Carriers and each battalion had
two machine gun platoons, a motor platoon and an
anti-tank platoon.
•
1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade. 1 RB was a 750
strong Regular battalion, mechanised like 2 KRRC.
They were re-tasked to 30 Infantry Brigade and
Calais on 23rd May.
The insertion into Calais was beset by logistical difficulties.
It took hours for the tanks of 3 RTR to be removed from
their container ship, with men working around the clock
from the early hours of 23rd May. Some of the artillery
that should have accompanied the brigade never even
arrived. The exact nature of the German advance was
unclear, and Allied command-and-control in the area was
starting to break down. The men of 30 Brigade would
have alighted at Calais without realising that battle would
soon be upon them.
The Battle
Forward elements of 3 RTR, once they had been able
to get their vehicles off the ship, pushed forward to
Coquelles and Guînes on 23rd May, small towns to the
West and South of Calais respectively. There, they came
into contact – far sooner than they had anticipated – with
the forward screen of the advancing panzer division (1st
Panzer Division in the first instance before it was ordered
to bypass and head to Dunkirk, leaving Calais to the
10th). The British tanks originally managed to out-gun the
light German tanks opposing them, but were forced back
closer to Calais when the Germans managed to reinforce
with the artillery accompanying the wider division.
As this action was ongoing, Brigadier Nicholson pushed
forward to speak directly to the Commanding Officer of
3 RTR, Lt Col Keller, having now arrived in Calais. The
tanks were ordered to disengage and to pull back to
the town, concentrating in the square outside the Hotel
de Ville (the town hall). Nicholson had been ordered to
do what he could to delay the Germans, and needed to
concentrate what forces he had at his disposal – bearing
in mind the general lack of heavier assets – to achieve
maximum effect.
The units of 30 Brigade were given their areas to defend.
The Rifle Brigade were given the eastern ramparts of
the outer enceinte wall following the line of the canal
system that spreads out from the inner moat guarding
the port; 2 KRRC had the West, and the QVR pushed
out as a screen accompanied by the anti-air batteries
already present in Calais before the arrival of 30 Brigade.
32
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Defensive preparations, however, were complicated
when Nicholson was ordered to move 350,000 rations
that were being stored at Calais to supply Dunkirk. The
recce that moved out before the rations were loaded
managed to break-through to Gravelines, a small port
halfway along the hour’s drive to Dunkirk, accounting for
a number of German vehicles as they did so. By the time
the main body was ready to move, however, the German
roadblocks had been reinforced and the convoy had to
pull back to Calais after advancing a short distance, lest it
be cut-off and destroyed.
From dawn on 24th May, Calais started to come under
heavy shellfire. The 10th Panzer Division had occupied
the high ground to the West. That afternoon, the town
was attacked from all three landward sides by tanks
operating in combination with infantry. Outlying French
positions surrendered rapidly, but the British defenders of
what was historically an English town fought stubbornly.
It is evident that the Germans had trouble identifying
the locations of the rifle platoons and sections holding
the enceinte, so it is likely that the few hours 30 Brigade
had had to site their positions were hours extremely well
spent. They took full advantage of what urban terrain can
offer the defender.
By 1900 on the 24th, the attacking Germans reported
that almost a third of their men and vehicles had become
casualties in some form. They nonetheless managed to
gain a foothold in the South of the town. The defenders’
ammunition was starting to run dangerously low, a
problem compounded by the fact that, earlier in the day,
the ship that contained the bulk of 1 RB’s supplies had
sailed for England without being fully unloaded. It is
possible that this was a result of the fact that 30 Brigade
had been told that their evacuation had been agreed ‘in
principle,’ making it unwise to unload stores that would
anyway have to be abandoned. With hindsight, however,
this proved to be yet another of the logistical failures that
added to the desperation of the defence of Calais.
As darkness began to fall, Nicholson started to reduce his
perimeter. Continuing to hold the outer enceinte would
be too risky, given the lack of a reserve with which to
counter any break-through. All but two of the medium
anti-tank guns that the defenders originally possessed
had been destroyed, further reducing the ground they
could hope to hold. The brigade first pulled back to a line
marked by the Boulevard Léon Gambetta and the Marck
Canal to the East. Nicholson, having lately been told to
expect evacuation from 0700 the next morning, then
moved his forces at 2100 across the moat (the Canal de
Calais) into the old town. The only thing that prevented
the old town becoming the impregnable fortress its
medieval builders had intended were the bridges. The
French had failed to blow them, and 30 Brigade had no
explosive charges.
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The Germans rested during the night and did not attempt
another assault. The fate of the defenders of Calais,
however, had already been sealed by other means. Before
midnight, Nicholson was told that the French commander
responsible for the northern sector, General Fagalde, has
‘forbidden evacuation.’ Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville,
whose destroyers had been providing some fire support
to 30 Brigade during the day, came ashore and handed
Nicholson a note with a message from London asking him
to comply ‘for the sake of Allied solidarity.’ Calais was
now useless to the BEF as a port, but it was to be held to
the last nonetheless.
It is important to consider the wider political context
in order to understand why this somewhat petulant
request by the French was not ignored. Paris was
panicking, and had become suspicious that the British
were holding-back important assets like the squadrons
of the RAF from the Battle of France. London was
keen to do what it could to prevent the French from
capitulating entirely, like the Dutch already had and as
the Belgians were soon to do. Holding Calais was seen
as the right kind of signal to send. Whether this signal
was worth the loss of two of the British Army’s most
modern mechanised Regular battalions, among others,
and whether any signal could conceivably have had an
effect on a French political elite already wracked with
defeatism, are questions worth raising.
In the early daylight hours of 25th May, elements of 30
Brigade pushed beyond the Canal de Calais and back
in the outer town. They had noticed that the Germans
had seemingly failed to reconnoitrer during the night,
thereby failing to exploit the opportunities offered by
the British withdrawal. By 0800, however, the attack
resumed and the Swastika was soon flying over the
town hall. The civilian mayor attempted formally to
surrender, but was arrested by the British and prevented
from doing so.
At 1500 on 25th May, the German shelling suddenly
stopped. A German officer advanced under a flag of truce
and demanded that the garrison surrender. Brigadier
Nicholson’s response is recorded in the official war diary
of the 10th Panzer Division: ‘the answer is no, as it is the
British Army’s duty to fight as well as it is the German’s.’
The assault recommenced at 1830 with a massive
artillery and mortar bombardment. Half an hour later,
German tanks attempted to rush the three bridges into
the old city held by 2 KRRC. The leading tanks on two
were knocked-out, preventing any further advance, and
the tanks on the other bridge were driven back. Calais
still held. The night of the 25th once again offered a
respite, and gave the navy a chance to evacuate some
wounded and to land some ammunition.
There was, however, little that the exhausted defenders
could now do to delay the inevitable. The morning
of the 26th was marked by a huge aerial assault that
caused considerable damage. The Germans broke
through into the old town in the West, and were able
to isolate the citadel from the rest of the shrinking
defensive perimeter. By 1600, they had broken in and
shortly after managed to capture Brigadier Nicholson.
In the centre and East of the town, what was left of 1
RB was driven back to the very edge of the harbour.
Running out of ammunition and with nothing but the
sea behind them, they had no choice but to surrender.
The final act of organised resistance came from a
company of the QVR, who finally threw down their
weapons around 1700.
Suppressed by ever more accurate artillery fire from
spotters in the town hall tower, 2 KRRC had to devote
a company apiece to each bridge in its sector. 1 RB was
becoming increasingly badly mauled, with local counterattacks to retake lost houses failing, leaving many
dead and the commanding officer mortally wounded.
Individual German riflemen occupying the upper-storeys
of houses overlooking the moat into the old city also
became a constant menace, making movement in the
open ever more dangerous. The citadel to the West,
which was still held by its French garrison, held firm,
however, and Royal Navy destroyers operating in the
Channel did what they could to limit the bombardment,
harassed though they were by Stuka dive-bombers.
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33
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Aftermath
Some men of 2 KRRC, after their commander had
ordered them to break into small groups and try to
escape, made it out on a Royal Navy yacht that was one
of the last vessels to try to land ammunition. Other men
of 30 Brigade attempted to walk along the beaches to
Dunkirk. The overwhelming majority were captured,
and, like most of their comrades at Calais, came to
spend the rest of the war in prison camps.
The defence of Calais remains a matter of controversy.
Winston Churchill took pains in his post-war memoires
to emphasise the battle’s purportedly pivotal role in the
wider effort to evacuate the BEF. The contemporary
record, however, makes it hard to believe that ensuring
the safety of Dunkirk was the ultimate, driving objective
of failing to evacuate Calais. 30 Brigade was, after
all, originally told to expect evacuation and the initial
reasons given for the order to fight to the last cited only
the cause of ‘Allied solidarity,’ not the safety of the rest
of the BEF. High politics, combined with the confusion
and panic of May 1940, probably prevented a more
objective military analysis of the situation. 30 Brigade
could also arguably have been withdrawn on the night
of the 25th/26th of May without really altering the
delaying effect they had already had on the Germans.
Heinz Guderian, moreover, also came to claim after
the war that 30 Brigade’s dogged defence had little
influence on his operational planning decisions.
Whatever the real reasons for the ‘hold to the last’
order, it is clear that the defence of Calais did play a
role in preventing the Germans from destroying the
Dunkirk pocket, whatever Guderian suggested. An
entire panzer division and a large chunk of an Army
Group’s heavy artillery and air support had been fixed
on a strategically useless objective by the resistance of
a small British brigade. It is impossible to know what
impact freeing these assets could have had on the wider
BEF and the evacuation, but it would hardly have been a
positive one.
Above all, the defence of Calais is a testimony to the
fighting spirit of the British soldier in 1940. French
beaches other than those of Calais and Dunkirk would
come to see it again four years later, when another
British and Allied expeditionary force would drive the
German armies back across western Europe, to their
final, and total, defeat.
The memorial to 30 Infantry Brigade, Calais. (Photograph: JMW)
34
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35
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
|
Sketch map of the Cassel-Ledringham area. Note the attempt to capture the area’s relief and marking of distances. (Photograph courtesy of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum.)
36
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01
Time
Location
Event
0900
Wormhoudt
Ground in general
May 1940: Situation Friendly Forces
Actions
Group discussion - the Moral
Component
02
1000
Cassel - Mont
Ground in detail
May 1940: Situation Enemy Forces
145 X at Cassel: intent, dispositions, early
actions
03
1215
Cassel - town
Lunch
04
1300
Cassel – Rue des Ramparts
27th May – Zuytpeene, Bavinchove, C Coy 2
GLOSTERS
Employment of the Javelin
Syndicate Task – Coy in the Area
Defence
05
1400
Cassel – college copse
27th May – B & D Coys 2 GLOSTERS
The German break-in
Syndicate Task – STAP
Syndicate Task – How to achieve
effective mutual support?
06
1500
Le Peckel
26th-30th May – defence of the blockhouse
07
1630
Cassel – Commonwealth War Graves
Cassel – final days and withdrawal
Act of Remembrance
08
1730
Cassel
Departure
Mission Brief & Orientation
Syndicate Task Defenders – Qs1-7
Syndicate Task Attackers – Qs1-7
Group Discussion
Syndicate Task Attackers –
blockhouse assault
Syndicate Task Defenders –
blockhouse defence
Group discussion
Syndicate Task – top three tactical
lessons, key differences between
1940 and today, advantages of
hindsight
Closing discussion – tactical success?
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Cassel
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
The Defence
Principles of the Defence
• Depth
• All-Round Defence
• Mutual Support
• Reserves
• Offensive Action
• Deception
Phases of the Defensive Battle
•
•
•
•
•
Preparatory Stage
Covering Force Action
Battle Handover
Main Defensive Battle
Employment of Reserves
The Company in the Defence – a conceptual diagram from a training manual used in the Second World War.
Note the tight perimeter, close mutual support, and the employment of heavy weaponry in enfilade positions covering the roads.
Modern British Army technology and doctrine would encourage a very different approach. (Photograph courtesy of the Soldiers
of Gloucestershire Museum.)
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37
38
|
Time
Location
Event
01
0900
Parc Richelieu
The Defence of Calais – situation
friendly and enemy forces, opening
acts
Contemporary operations in the
urban environment
02
1100
Fort Risban
The Defence of Calais – final stages
03
1200
30 Brigade Memorial
04
1230
Place d’Armes
05
1330
Calais
Act of Remembrance
Lunch
Departure
Actions
Syndicate Task Defenders – the
defence of Calais
Syndicate Task Attackers – the
assault
Syndicate Tasks – reflections on
COAs, viability of operations in
the urban environment, civilian
considerations
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Calais
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Operations in the Urban Environment
Phases of the Urban Assault
Principles of the Attack
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Encirclement and Isolation
Break-In
Secure Objectives
Clearance
Reorganisation
Surprise
Security
Seize Key Terrain
Concentration of Fire
Manoeuvre
Plan to Exploit Success
Simplicity
Planning Considerations:
• Understanding – thorough IPE crucial, based on as many sources of information as possible, and
communicated vertically and horizontally.
•
•
•
Simplicity.
•
•
•
Thoroughness – esp. in clearance.
Think-through weapon effects – esp. if civilians are present
Command & Control – robust and rehearsed communications plan, clear control measures that make
sense on the ground.
Momentum – ensured by well-practiced TTPs and an effective CSS plan.
Covering Fire – combined arms approach crucial
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39
7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais
Notes
The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Battlefield Study to Cassel and Calais
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The Commonwealth War Graves
at Cassel.
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41
© Crown Copyright
The author of this publication is:
Matthew Holden & Capt James M Wakeley
IO | 7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment | 1a Iverna
Gardens, Kensington, W8 6TN
AMS 23-01-102