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 | iii 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 | 39 40 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 | 1 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 2 | 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 | 3 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 4 | 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. | 5 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 6 | 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. | 7 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. 8 | 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. | 9 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. 10 | 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. | 11 7th Battalion The Rifles Regiment I The Defence of the Dunkirk Pocket: Cassel and Calais 12 | 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) | 13 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. 14 | 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) | 15 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. 16 | 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. | 17 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. 18 | 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. | 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. 20 | 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.) | 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. 22 | 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.’ | 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 24 | 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. | 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. 26 | 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. | 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 | 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 | 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. | 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) | 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 | 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. | 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 | 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 | 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.) | 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 | 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 ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................................... 40 | The Commonwealth War Graves at Cassel. | 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