Boulogne: The Guards Brigade Fighting Defence - May 1940

By Jon Cooksey

The story of the World War II battle for the French port which ended in a desperate evacuation—from the author of Calais: A Fight to the Finish.

As German armored columns moved to seal off French ports from retreating British troops in 1940, Winston Churchill had few reserves he could commit. In an attempt to delay the Germans at Boulogne, Churchill sent in two battalions of the Irish Guards and Welsh Guards in a hastily-organized amphibious landing. In Battleground Europe style, eyewitness accounts and original photographs provide previously unknown details. A guide is also provided to the monuments, battle sites and accommodations in this historic city as they are today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9781783379286

Jon Cooksey

Jon Cooksey iwasa leading military historian who takes a special interest in the history of the world wars. He was the editor of Stand To!, the journal of the Western Front Association, and he is an experienced battlefield guide. His books include The Barnsley Pals, Calais, Harry’s War and, as editor, Blood and Iron.

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Other guides in the Battleground Europe Series:

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Ypres – Hill 60 by Nigel Cave

Ypres – Messines Ridge by Peter Oldham

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Ypres – Passchendaele by Nigel Cave

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Ypres – St Julien by Graham Keech

Walking the Somme by Paul Reed

Somme – Gommecourt by Nigel Cave

Somme – Serre by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave

Somme – Beaumont Hamel by Nigel Cave

Somme – Thiepval by Michael Stedman

Somme – La Boisselle by Michael Stedman

Somme – Fricourt by Michael Stedman

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Arras – Vimy Ridge by Nigel Cave

Arras – Gavrelle by Trevor Tasker and Kyle Tallett

Arras – Bullecourt by Graham Keech

Arras – Monchy le Preux by Colin Fox

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Hindenburg Line Epehy by Bill Mitchinson

Hindenburg Line Riqueval by Bill Mitchinson

Hindenburg Line Villers-Plouich by Bill Mitchinson

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Hindenburg Line – Saint Quentin by Helen McPhail and Philip Guest

Hindenburg Line – Bourlon Wood by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave

La Bassé– Neuve Chapelle by Geoffrey Bridger

Loos – Hohenzollen by Andrew Rawson

Loos – Hill 70 by Andrew Rawson

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Battleground Europe Series guides under contract for future release:

Stamford Bridge & Hastings by Peter Marren

Somme – High Wood by Terry Carter

Somme – German Advance 1918 by Michael Stedman

Somme – Beaucourt by Michael Renshaw

Walking Arras by Paul Reed

Gallipoli – Gully Ravine by Stephen Chambers

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WW2 Normandy – Epsom by Tim Saunders

WW2 Normandy – Mont Pinçon by Eric Hunt

WW2 Normandy – Operation Bluecoat by Ian Daglish

WW2 Market Garden – Arnhem, The Bridge by Frank Steer

WW2 Normandy – Falaise by Tim Kilvert-Jones

WW2 Walcheren by Andrew Rawson

With the continued expansion of the Battleground series a Battleground Series Club has been formed to benefit the reader. The purpose of the Club is to keep members informed of new titles and to offer many other reader-benefits. Membership is free and by registering an interest you can help us predict print runs and thus assist us in maintaining the quality and prices at their present levels.

Please call the office 01226 734555, or send your name and address along with a request for more information to:

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47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Photograph previous page: An abandoned Allied anti-aircraft gun on the harbour front. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz

For Heather and Georgia

Other books by Jon Cooksey:

Calais –A Fight to the Finish

(2000 Battleground series)

and

Barnsley Pals

History of the 13th and 14th Battalions,

York and Lancaster Regiment, 1914-1918

(1986)

Published by

LEO COOPER

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © Jon Cooksey, 2002

ISBN 0 85052 814 3

eISBN 9781783379286

A CIP catalogue of this book is available

from the British Library

Printed by CPI UK

For up-to-date information on other titles produced under the Leo Cooper imprint, please telephone or write to:

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, FREEPOST SF5, 47 Church Street

Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Telephone [phone]

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

The Port of Boulogne

A Note on Using the Guide and Advice to Visitors

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1BLITZKRIEG

Chapter 2WAR IS BETTER THAN FOXHUNTING

Chapter 3AN INCONVENIENT AND TIRESOME MOMENT

Chapter 4WHEN YOU’VE KILLED TWELVE GERMANS YOU CAN COME HOME

Chapter 5THEN THE PANZER SHALL BECOME OUR IRON GRAVE

Chapter 6A CHANGE FROM PUBLIC DUTIES

Chapter 7ALL TALL FELLOWS

Chapter 8THE SCRAP IRON FLOTILLA

Chapter 9MY LITTLE FORCE FOUGHT MOST SPLENDIDLY

TOUR 1

TOUR 2

TOUR 3

Bibliography

FOREWORD

by

Sir Beville Stanier Bt

I can remember, very clearly, at the age of six, the moment when my mother said to me, ‘Your father’s safe and he’s back from Boulogne.’ Of course at such a young age, I had no real idea of what he and the men of 2nd Battalion, Welsh Guards, of whom he was in command, had been through in those latter days of May 1940. The battles that took place then, around both Boulogne and Calais, have been a somewhat forgotten episode for the greater British public by comparison with Dunkirk and indeed in subsequent years have tended to recede still further from our collective memory.

My father held the dual distinction of being one of the last British commanding officers to leave continental Europe in 1940 before the Fall of France and one of the first to return four years later on D-Day as a Brigade Commander. He landed on Gold Beach on 6 June 1944, near Arromanches, where his personal memorial lies next to the sea wall in the town square. His 231 Infantry Brigade fought right through France and, ironically, back up to the northern channel ports from where he had been so unceremoniously ejected over four years earlier.

He did not talk much about the war afterwards, although he wrote occasional articles for the regimental magazine. It was only at a late stage in his ninety-six year life that he was eventually interviewed and a tape was recorded in which he gave an account of his personal experiences in Boulogne and his recollections of those frantic hours. It was only then that I began to understand the tension and the drama of the withdrawal and subsequent evacuation, under fire, from Boulogne harbour.

Now, with this book, Jon Cooksey has illuminated the whole episode for his readers. He shows how this battle was fought with much discipline in the face of overwhelming odds and without adequate support and resources. He writes from both Allied and German perspectives, bringing the action to life in a fast moving and dramatic style. It is much enhanced by the first-hand memories of both British and German veterans.

The audacious advance of General Guderian’s XIX Panzerkorps is described in a thrilling way, reminiscent of Rommel’s feats in North Africa. Equally exciting are the experiences of the men of 20 Guards Brigade as they are forced back into the town of Boulogne from which most, but not all, escaped back to England. This book adds a new dimension to those uncertain days and complements his account of the 1940 battle for Calais previously chronicled.

INTRODUCTION

It is almost two years since the publication of Calais – A Fight to the Finish – May 1940 and in many ways this book could be seen as its companion volume. Some of the events which unfold on these pages were taking place at the same time as the bitter fighting for Calais, then not much more than a forty minute truck ride away. Whenever the military history of those dark days of late May and early June of 1940 is recounted, the stories of Boulogne and Calais will be inextricably linked, for the decision to save the British troops in one of those ports almost certainly led to the sacrifice of those in the other. The story of the battle for Boulogne has many parallels with the story of the battle for Calais but the parallels start long before May 1940.

Both are ancient and important ports and both are steeped in history. Boulogne, like Calais, has played host to some of history’s most illustrious figures. It was from the cliff tops near Boulogne that both Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte looked out with an acquisitive eye across the English Channel towards the coast of England. Both set up large military camps in Boulogne and both developed the port, sheltered from the north by Cap Gris Nez, to assemble a formidable fleet in readiness for an invasion of the British Isles. Caesar succeeded, Napoleon, for various reasons, did not. Nonetheless it is Naploeon’s statue, not Julius Caesar’s which still looks out towards the English coast from its location just north of the town atop a column more than fifty metres in height.

Just under a century after the French Emperor’s final defeat on the fields of Waterloo some of the first units of Sir John French’s British Expeditionary Force landed in Boulogne on August 14, 1914, on their way to engage the Armies of the Kaiser also on the fields of Belgium. For the next four years Boulogne became the main route for supplies and troop movements into France and one of the main exit ports for the evacuation of wounded. Boulogne like Calais became a bustling British base and tented camps were strung out along the cliff tops between the two ports. At the end of ’the war to end wars’ the body of the British Unknown Warrior lay for one night in a Boulogne chapel before it was borne across the Channel to its final resting place amidst English kings in Westminster Abbey.

Boulogne at peace. The beach near the Digue Ste. Beuve.

The Port of Boulogne in use by the British during the Great War of 1914-18.

The Port of Boulogne in use by the British during the Great War of 1914-18.

The Port of Boulogne in use by the British during the Great War of 1914-18.

When war came to this part of France again in May 1940 in the shape of the rampant German panzer divisions of General Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzerkorps, the British response to the threat to these two channel ports was remarkably similar. In both cases a brigade consisting of some of the finest troops that Britain could muster were hastily dispatched across the English Channel in an effort to block and secure an ancient port through which the British government might reinforce and re-supply its beleaguered Expeditionary Force in the field.

In both cases the garrisons were asked to defend a perimeter far in excess of the strength of the force available. In both cases the troops went into combat against battle hardened German veterans with very little transport, inadequate weaponry – few anti-tank guns, few effective mortars, no mines, no barbed wire – inadequate maps, inadequate communications and inadequate orders which, during peacetime manoeuvres, would have raised gales of laughter from both officers and men. But this was not peacetime and the speed of the German Blitzkrieg had so overwhelmed Allied intelligence sources that the orders simply characterised the chaos and confusion abroad at the highest levels of command.

In Boulogne as in Calais, the initial positions taken up by the British troops were eventually driven in and they were forced to withdraw into the town to face every infantryman’s worst nightmare – street fighting in a built up area. In both ports the French garrisons fought heroically during these later urban phases of the fighting, but any attempt at coordination on the part of the Allies was sadly lacking in both cases.

That said there was much bravery, real discipline under fire, determination and stoicism on the part of those who took part in the fighting, but the dénouement of the story of the battle for Boulogne differed sharply from the story of its northerly neighbour. In the case of Boulogne the British government decided to cut its losses and sent in destroyers to pull its men out before they were engulfed by the advancing German tide. It was this act which, more than any other, condemned the British in Calais to certain death or capture.

The desperate scenes at the harbour of Boulogne as the destroyers engaged machine-gun positions and German vehicles over open sights whilst they evacuated hundreds of men would never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The British, however, had not consulted the French and their garrison was left to fight on as best it could until it could resist no longer. The French were furious. They felt betrayed and said so. Churchill, who had already decided on the evacuation of Calais ‘in principle’, now had to choose between saving the men in Calais, as he had saved those in Boulogne, or serving the greater cause of ‘Allied solidarity’. He chose the latter course and the decision almost made him physically sick. He later recorded that it was the only time he felt thus during the entire course of a war in which he was to hear many sickening pieces of news.

This then is the story of the battle for Boulogne, the story of a battle which, although short in duration, was an intense struggle against overwhelming odds. It is a story of remarkable discipline amid the utmost confusion, of reckless courage and devotion to duty, of blazing destroyers, of final stands and the bitter taste of captivity told in the words of those who were there.

Jon Cooksey, READING 2002

THE PORT OF BOULOGNE

Boulogne is split in two by the considerably altered and widened course of the River Liane as it flows on its way through the port to the English Channel. To the east, within easy walking distance of the busy port, is the Basse Ville, the main shopping and business district gathered around the thoroughfares of the Grand Rue, Rue Faidherbe, Rue Thiers, Rue Victor Hugo and Rue Nationale. Here the visitor will find the majority of hotels, restaurants and shops enclosed in busy oneway streets and pedestrianised precincts. From the Basse Ville the streets rise steeply up towards the Haute Ville, the charming, self contained Old Town, a rough 1,400 metre square of cobbled streets enclosed by the high ramparts, seventeen turrets and four gatehouses of the thirteenth century Citadel. It is largely due to the architectural importance and beauty of the old town with its magnificent domed Cathedral, the Basilique Notre Dame, that Boulogne has been awarded the title Ville d’Art et d’Histoire. The fortifications, along with the chateau, are amongst the best preserved in northern France and a walk along the ramparts offers outstanding views of the town. Beyond the Haute Ville the ground dips before rising up again to the village of St. Martin- Boulogne and the semi-circle of high ground which stretches from Terlincthun in the north to Ostrohove in the south, almost encircling the eastern half of Boulogne. Dominating the town to the east is the long spur of Mont Lambert rising to a height of 189 metres, a formidable and much prized feature for military leaders. Whoever held Mont Lambert would almost certainly hold Boulogne. The line of high ground is easy to follow on the map; the A16 Autoroute scrawls its way across the uppermost slopes following almost exactly the old route known as the Chemin Vert.

The Porte Gayole at the turn of the 20th Century.

An early photograph of the Basilque Notre Dame in the Haute Ville.

To the west of the Liane the flat land by the river is dominated by the industrial zone of fish processing plants, abattoirs and other industry but here, too, the ground rises to the south-west, although not as steeply as that in the east, up to the residential village of Outreau and beyond to Le Portel on the coast. Beyond Outreau to the south the ground rises to what, in winter, is a windswept spur of open fields, before it undulates on its way to a final steep drop at the Channel coast. On the map the shape of the town does not appear to have changed much over sixty years due to the limitations placed upon its growth by the local topography. The town has grown and new housing has pushed its way up the surrounding hills but lines and contours on a map cannot show the pace and development that has taken place during the last six decades.

On the ramparts of the Citadel at La Tour Françoise overlooking the valley of the River Liane to the south.

The Boulogne battlefields of today are unlike many of those of the First World War. There are no remains of trenches, gaping mine craters or shell holes here; no vast cemeteries like that at Tyne Cot in the Ypres Salient. Boulogne is the foremost fishing port and fish processing centre in France; it is a thriving industrial town with an agricultural hinterland responding to the changing needs of internal and external markets. Much has changed, even during the last few years, not least in terms of the infrastructure of the town and its surroundings. The siting of the Channel Tunnel terminal at Coquelles just to the south east of Calais and the ever increasing volume of cross-Channel traffic into that port since the closure of the ferry service to Boulogne, have been the prime factors in the extensive development of the motorway network in this part of the Pas de Calais.

The A16 Autoroute, opened in 1998, conveys travellers swiftly from Calais before swinging them around that arc of high ground which overlooks Boulogne from the east and over vertiginous viaducts on their journey towards Abbeville, Amiens and the Paris Basin.

The closure of a cross-Channel ferry service with Britain obviously posed a problem for Boulogne in terms of declining tourist revenue, but the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the extension of the A16 motorway provided other possibilities. In anticipation of the closure of the cross-Channel ferry link Boulogne secured the siting of Nausicaa, the French National Centre for the Study of the Sea, on the north-east jetty of the Avant Port. This visitor attraction, the foremost centre for marine study in France, if not northern Europe, brings more than 800,000 people to Boulogne each year. To service their needs and encourage them to explore the town and region further, there are hundreds of hotel rooms and scores of brasseries and restaurants to suit every taste and pocket. In addition to building new roads, other construction work has seen a rash of new industrial and commercial zones spring up to the south near the River Liane and east to utilise and service the passing motorway traffic. It