SECOND WORLD WAR - Dunkirk
Dunkirk is probably more worthy of the mantle ‘The Great Escape', than any POW
camp depiction and on this tour we are going to visit the sites and areas around
which this bravest of all tactical withdrawals took place. Along with studying the
strategy and tactics used we'll be visiting the places that were key in the
Battle of France and where vital and heroic stands were made to buy time
for the main force to withdraw.
Between May 26th and June 4th British and Canadian troops from the British Expeditionary Force along with allied French forces were trapped in a pocket around the French town of Dunkerque.
On the 1st day of rescue a little over seven thousand men were taken off but by the end of the ninth day over 338,000 troops had been saved from certain death or incarceration in German prison camps. Churchill hailed it as a ‘miracle of deliverance', adding that, ‘the whole root, the core, the brain of the British Army', was stranded in Dunkirk.
During the evacuation, the German Luftwaffe kept up an almost constant air attack utilising the ubiquitous JU-87 Stuka Dive Bomber with the death curdling sirens screaming as they dropped out of the sky to deliver their death into the heart of the British army stranded in the sea, on the beaches and around the harbour walls. The viciousness of the air attacks meant that after the fourth day the evacuation had to take place by night adding to the already confused and desperate situation. Once the men were on the little boats and destroyers they still had to run the gauntlet of German E-Boats in the English Channel. Fast, nimble and deadly the E-Boats attacked and sank HMS Wakeful (Escort Destroyer) returning to England with around 640 evacuated soldiers on board, the losses were heavy and only 25 crew members and a handful of soldiers survived. Once the E-Boats had finished their attacks the U-Boats took over and accounted for HMS Grafton as well as numerous small craft. But mostly it was the devastating air attacks that caused the most destruction amongst the flotilla. Of the six Royal Naval destroyers lost, four of these were to air attack, HMS Grenade, HMS Basilisk, HMS Havant and HMS Keith. The French navy lost three destroyers, Bourrasque (mined) Scirocco (E-Boats) and Le Foudroyant (air attack). Additional losses included 9 large boats. 19 destroyers were damaged and over 200 of the allied rescue craft were sunk with an equal number damaged. Perhaps the biggest unsung heroes of the evacuation were the planes of the RAF. Operating above the smoke and sea fog off the beaches and out of sight of the troops on the ground, the RAF fought a desperate rearguard action against overwhelming Luftwaffe forces losing 177 aircraft against the Luftwaffe's 132.
Arguably, the biggest casualty of the British Expeditionary Force was the 51st Highland Division. This Division was, to all intents and purposes, outwith the control of General Viscount Gort's BEF and instead was attached to the French IX Corps under General Ihler and defending the Maginot line. While Gort had orders to help the French in any way that he saw fit, importantly, he had the authority to countermand any French order if he thought it prudent to do so, which is why Dunkirk happened. Instead of withdrawing further south-west as ordered by the French commander, Gort could see that the Germans were trying to force a pincer movement around his army with the aim of cutting them off and destroying them, equally Whitehall had passed the news to Gort that they had been made aware by the Belgian government that their surrender was close which fundamentally made the defence of France almost impossible. Gort took the wise decision to order a general withdrawal to Dunkirk and requested that Whitehall think of a way of getting them off the beaches and home. In reality, the British High Command had been working on a strategy for just this situation for about a week before the order was given to rescue the BEF.
During this tour we'll visit Cassel where the 2nd Gloucestershire Regiment defied repeated German attempts to take the strategically important town. We'll also visit St Venant, which despite its small size has been fought over by the likes of Cromwell whose Commander Sir Thomas Morgan took it from the Spanish in 1657 and The Duke of Marlborough who took it from the French in 1710. In 1940 the Germans took it on 24th May but it was promptly taken back again by the British 2nd Division on the 25th. On the morning of the 27th it formed the 6th Brigade's right flank and was held by the 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers with part of the 2nd Durham Light Infantry. As the day wore on, composite German forces of tanks and infantry slowly forced the British back and began encircling them until the order to withdraw to Lys was issued. Not many British soldiers made it back through the German lines.
We'll also look at the worst side of warfare by visiting the sites of two German atrocities, Le Paradis where a Company of 2nd Royal Norfolks were butchered by the SS Totenkopf Division, and a day after the Le Paradis murders around 100 men from the 2nd Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment and the Royal Artillery, were squeezed into a barn at Esquelbecq after which the SS Leibstandarte ‘Adolf Hitler' threw in 5 stick grenades, those still standing were then ordered outside in groups of five where they were executed by firing squad, but not all we're murdered.
As well as all this we'll be visiting the beaches and dunes around Dunkirk and the town itself including the important harbour area and we'll finish with a look at the defence of Calais.
5 DAY TOUR
Price - £950 per person
£1750 per couple sharing
The tour begins and finishes at Victoria Bus Station and spaces are limited to 12 to give each person the best of battlefield experiences.
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