Flames of Calais by Airey Neave

Author:Airey Neave [Neave, Airey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526748515
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2019-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

In his impatience, Churchill had not realised the hopeless nature of the British tank position at Calais. The Third Royal Tank Regiment were not “boxed up” through any fault of their own. They had been landed far too late to prevent their encirclement by a Panzer division with three or four times as many tanks. Their strength had been weakened by the order to break out to St. Omer. This led to a useless engagement at Guines on the 23rd. Had this not happened, Nicholson, with the support of a complete tank battalion, might have delayed the Tenth Panzer Division for even longer than he did.

Nor was it in the least fair for Churchill to suggest that Keller’s tanks would not attempt a sortie because they “recoiled” from the field guns planted on the outskirts. When it was known that the First Panzer Division had blocked the Marck Road with anti-tank guns during the night of the 23rd May, it was suicidal to attempt to break out with so weak a force.

The same point was to become a subject of controversy between Nicholson and other commanders next day. He ordered the Rifle Brigade and the tanks on the eastern side of Calais to try to break out to the south to relieve the pressure on the 60th. By that time such a plan was quite impracticable. It was better to use patrols of two or three tanks in support of the hard-pressed infantry, fighting in the streets.

Churchill’s admonitions to Gort to attack the Tenth Panzer Division when the B.E.F. was separated from Calais by at least four Panzer divisions on the western bank of the Aa Canal, are evidence of the terrifying ignorance of those conducting this campaign from Whitehall.

Of all the commanders at Calais, Colonel Keller received the most baffling orders. His tanks were still the subject of the ridiculous instruction to “proceed to Boulogne”. Since the evacuation of that place had already been decided by the War Office, it seems incredible that Brownrigg should still be sending Keller the same orders which he had given him at the Gare Maritime on the evening of the 22nd May.

During much of the 24th, General Brownrigg was actually in a destroyer within sight of Boulogne and Calais. In the evening, Keller went aboard the Royal Naval Yacht Gulzar moored in the harbour and used as a wireless station. He replied to Brownrigg that these orders were “impossible”. As it grew dark, with two patrols missing, the tank crews crawled into shellholes near the Gare Maritime. The noise of bombs, artillery, automatic weapons and sniping had all made for intense weariness.

After Major Poole had given me his orders to fight like “bloody hell”, I returned up the railway embankment. The situation in the Boulevard Léon Gambetta was becoming unpleasant, for the Germans had now switched their fire to the railway bridge itself. Bullets struck it, as I found my party of soldiers, with two sergeants, crouching behind an ivy-covered wall. They had only two Brens and some rifles.

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