Men of the 51st deserve better

Sir, – The centenary of the 1918 Armistice quite reasonably focuses the attention of this year’s Remembrance events on the First World War.

An episode of Channel 4 series Dunkirk – The Forgotten Heroes, however, dealt with the shamefully neglected memory of the sacrifices made in 1940 by the soldiers of the 51st Highland Division.

Composed mainly of Highland regiments but including a number of Lowland and English units, the 51st was detached from the rest of the British Expeditionary Force and placed under French command as part of the Maginot Line to emphasise co-operation between the two armies.

When the German troops bypassed the Line by advancing through the Ardennes Forest and through Belgium, the 51st were sent rapidly north to join the French 9th Division near Abbeville with orders from Churchill to fight to the last to delay a French surrender and allow the British Army to escape and regroup.

The troops were not told about the Dunkirk evacuation.

After the town was literally blown apart by air and artillery weapons the Division and its French colleagues found themselves trapped in a diminishing pocket of land around the small coastal town of St Valery en Caux where they came under fire from land and air.

Having lost their heavy equipment during the retreat they were trying to fight off tanks and infantry with bren guns and rifles

Eventually with his troops out of ammunition, Major General Fortune was forced to surrender to Rommel.

Disobeying Whitehall, Admiral James had sent a flotilla of small ships to attempt an evacuation but, unlike Dunkirk, there were no beaches, only cliffs.

After several days lying offshore, being attacked by dive bombers and coastal guns, the ships heard of the surrender and returned to Portsmouth.

Eleven thousand men would spend five years of captivity in eastern Germany or in Poland, many being put to work on farms or in salt mines. In addition over 1,000 were killed in action and 500 wounded.

The 51st was rebuilt using territorial and training units and went on to fight with distinction in North Africa and Italy, but the achievement of their predecessors has been almost airbrushed from history.

As the programme’s narrator stated: “Their courage and sacrifice never received official recognition and no campaign medal has ever been awarded”.

On the main staircase of Dundee’s City Chambers there is a framed photograph of a stained glass window of a church in St Valery dedicated to the 51st, but they and their exploits are now largely forgotten at home.

They deserve better.

Ken Guild. Brown Street, Broughty Ferry.