Boulogne by Jon Cooksey

Author:Jon Cooksey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781783379286
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2009-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

A self-propelled heavy infantry gun, 15cm, mounted on a 1 Ausf B tank chassis, on the approaches to Boulogne during the fighting.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘ALL TALL FELLOWS’

The German assault on the Irish Guards line, which began at 7.30 am on 23 May, initially fell on 1 Company as it had the previous day. Panzers began to advance along the low road through Outreau which had been opened the night before with the destruction of the Irish anti-tank guns. Oberleutnant Künzel watched the tanks and rifle companies advance as he and his men took advantage of a days rest from the fighting. As they rested they witnessed the first of the prisoners being marched out of Boulogne as the Germans combed out the southern suburbs.

‘At the double they arrive, all races: Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen, Negroes from the Belgian Congo…Algerians, Moroccans – and Englishmen…the Englishmen show proud, dogged faces. Now they are marching ’to Berlin’ but as prisoners! Among the uninterrupted streaming columns…there are too, the ‘Englishmen’ who had manned the anti-tank gun position, all tall fellows. Irish Guards as we learn. They had behaved tough.’ Oberleutnant Künzel1

Instead of pressing their assault against 1 Company as they had done the previous day the Germans quickly switched the point of attack to Captain Murphy’s 4 Company, concentrating particularly on the forward platoon led by Lieutenant Peter Reynolds, dug in near the reservoir and trigonometrical point at la Tour de Renard. Reynolds’ platoon held a hump of high ground which fell away on both flanks and to their rear. From the summit of the hump a track ran due south-west across level ground and dipped after some 600 metres just before meeting another track coming uphill from Manihen. Beyond the reservoir were patches of ’dead ground’ and there were many hidden folds and hollows to the southwest which could conceal approaching armour. Reynolds’ position was not an envious one. The loss of 1 Company’s forward platoon and the destruction of the anti-tank guns to his left the night before had left him somewhat exposed, particularly as there were large gaps between him and the platoon under Second Lieutenant Jack Leslie dug in near the farm at the road junction 300 metres or so to his right rear. Here, in places where the ground fell away from the summit to the west, some of Jack Leslie’s posts were below the level of the surrounding hills.

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