Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
HEROES VERY END
The story of the 20,000 men left behind after Dunkirk to make one last, desperate stand is told in a new documentary
Winston Churchill’s vow in June 1940, as the last boats sailed from Dunkirk in the evacuation, still rings through the ages: ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.’
But no one in Britain knew then that 20,000 of our troops had been left in France and were fighting for their lives. The 51st Highland Division had orders to slow the German advance and support their French allies – to make a heroic last stand when all seemed lost.
They were massively outgunned. With just a few rounds of ammunition per man, the Highlanders’ chances of survival seemed almost nil. This was the forgotten army. Even today, the few left who saw that desperate battle have no medal to commemorate it.
But they will be forgotten no longer, thanks to a documentary drawing on the memories of some of those who defied Hitler’s blitzkrieg and lived to tell the tale, like Private Don ‘Smudger’ Smith and Private Eric Taylor, both proud veterans of the 51st.
Don, 97, and Eric, 98, tell their stories in Dunkirk: The Forgotten Heroes. When war broke out in 1939, the Highlanders were sent to strengthen the Maginot Line, a wall of steel and concrete bunkers along France’s north- eastern border designed to repel any German advance.
During the early months the British saw only occasional skirmishes with the enemy. Eric was startled one evening to see German soldiers approaching with bottles of wine. This was normal, he discovered – the previous weekend had seen French troops visiting the German lines.
When the enemy onslaught finally came, the Allies were overpowered in hours and forced into a panicked retreat. ‘There was no transport,’ said Eric, ‘so you’d march all night and then fight all day. It was hellish.’
About a third of a million British troops were trapped on the north coast of France around Dunkirk. Britain sent a navy of boats and small ships across the Channel to the rescue, in the teeth of heavy German fire.
But to the south, the 51st Highlanders were under orders from the War Office to fight on, bolstering the French for as long as they could to prevent a total overrun of France by Hitler. The division’s commander, General Victor Fortune, saw the odds were impossible. He sent a desperate signal to Downing Street, saying, ‘It is sheer murder to keep us on a 19-mile front 24 hours longer.’
Churchill sent back, ‘ We will fight on, whatever happens.’
Eric recalls that he and his com- in, it seemed none of them had a hope of seeing Britain again. But Admiral William James, commander in chief of naval forces in Portsmouth, had other ideas. Ignoring Churchill’s wishes, he sent a rescue fleet, and told Gen Fortune to be on the beach at St Valery-en-Caux, to embark under cover of darkness. Disaster struck, with thick fog making it impossible to manoeuvre close enough to shore. Admiral James promised to try again the next night.
But the next night was too late, with the 51st overrun by a German tank and Stuka divebomber attack. ‘My hand jerked back like it had been kicked,’ Don recalls, ‘and I felt a blow to the head. Then I lost consciousness.’ When he came round, his hand was covered in blood. Shrapnel had torn off one finger, and more was buried in his back and skull. But worse still, all five of his friends had been killed. After being carried to a makeshift hospital, a bus was found to take him to a casualty clearing station, but that too was hit by a bomb. Stumbling and crawling, somehow still alive, 18-year-old Don found his way to the gardens of a big house and passed out. When he awoke, an enemy officer was standing over him.
The German asked how old he was. ‘ Old enough to fight you b**tards,’ retorted Don. He spent the next 18 months in hospitals and convalescence camps, before being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Eric Taylor and 11,000 men of the 51st Highland Division were also captured. One thousand had been killed, and 5,000 wounded. They spent the rest of the war as PoWs.
There is no medal for the Battle of St Valery. Few people today know anything of the last- ditch defence after Dunkirk. Eric says he doesn’t want recognition for himself – ‘but for the lads that didn’t come back, they should have a medal’.
Don has kept an oath he swore to go to the Cenotaph every year to remember his friends. ‘I was proud to be one of them,’ he says. ‘I’ll never forget.’
Dunkirk: The Forgotten Heroes, Sunday 15 July, 8pm, Channel 4.