Dunkirk by Julian Thompson

Author:Julian Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2008-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

7

THE WITHDRAWAL:

II CORPS ON THE EASTERN FLANK

Having told the story of Boulogne and Calais, and thereby gone ahead of the narrative of the main body of the BEF, it is time to turn the clock back to the evening of 25 May. Gort's instructions to his corps commanders that evening included orders to Adam to relinquish command of III Corps and prepare a defensive perimeter around Dunkirk; and to Brooke to build up a defensive line along the line of the Ypres–Comines Canal, extending it northwards along the Yser Canal to the River Yser. With this as a shield, the BEF would withdraw to Dunkirk, starting with I Corps. For this task, Brooke was allocated the 5th and 50th Divisions in addition to his own 3rd and 4th Divisions, and as the fighting withdrawal progressed he would take other formations under command as required.

The 5th Division was ordered to move to the Ypres–Comines line that evening. Franklyn's division was only two brigades strong, one being detached in Norway, so Brooke told him to take under command the 143rd Brigade that had already been sent to the Ypres–Comines Line. By midday on 26 May the 5th Division started digging in. The 50th Division had to disengage its 151st Brigade from the Canal Line first, and this, followed by problems with traffic congestion, resulted in the division arriving at Ypres on 27 May to extend the line to the north. Until its arrival, the section of front was held by the French 2nd DLM, which remained under II Corps command for the time being.

Brooke's task would demand some complex manoeuvring. First he had to form his eastwards-facing shield and protect the BEF against the assaults of two or more enemy corps. All the while, as the BEF withdrew, he had to sidestep his formations progressively northwards. North-west of his ‘shield’, in succession he had to create three south-facing defensive layback positions, through which formations could withdraw as they peeled away from the right flank of the defence. The first layback line would be along the north bank of the Lys. The second was planned to be along the line Poperinghe–Ypres, although this might be changed if circumstances demanded. The third would be the Yser river, and Brooke's II Corps would withdraw through this layback to the Dunkirk perimeter, having shielded the BEF from Bock's Army Group B throughout.

Although Montgomery and others subsequently criticized the performance of the 1940 BEF, citing its lack of training for modern war and other inadequacies in both skill and equipment, most of the blame for these deficiencies can be laid at the door of the politicians, as is neatly summed up in the quotation at the head of Chapter 1. In his memoirs, Montgomery wrote: ‘the campaign in France and Flanders in 1940 was lost in Whitehall in the years before it ever began, and this cannot be stated too clearly or too often. One might add after Whitehall the words “and in Paris”.’1 What one cannot

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