Read Online The Sinking of the Lancastria by Jonathan Fenby - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Fenby
Ads: Link
inside at 5 p.m. that afternoon, Les would arrive, he assured her.
Heading back to the British base, Sweeney went looking for his friend, telling everyone he met from his unit that, if they saw him, they should tell him to be at the café at 5 p.m. Getting the word, Les turned up at the appointed hour. Joe and five others were waiting outside.
Sweeney opened the door, saying to his friend: ‘
Après vous
!’
‘Oh no Joe!’ Les replied. ‘After you!’
The half-dozen soldiers pushed Les inside. Then they closed the door, and went off to another café.
General Alan Brooke was less than pleased when he was sent back to France in the middle of June. The 57-year-old soldier, who would go on to become Britain’s Chief of Staff, had helped to command the evacuation from Dunkirk, sleeping for thirty-six hours after he reached his home in Hampshire. Then he was called to the War Office to be told he was going across the Channel to organise British troops left there to resist the German advance.
Brooke, who had been brought up in south-west France by his mother who preferred that country to Britain, recorded that this was one of his blackest moments. ‘I knew only too well the state of affairs that would prevail in France from now onwards,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘I had seen my hopes in the French Army gradually shattered . . . I had witnessed the realisation of my worst fears concerning its fighting value and morale and now I had no false conceptions as to what its destiny must inevitably be. To be sent back again into that cauldron with a new force to participate in the final stages of French disintegration wasindeed a dark prospect.’ 20
He asked the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir JohnDill, if he could refit two of the divisions which had come back from Dunkirk and take them with him to provide experienced troops. There was no time, he was told. When the Secretary for War, Anthony Eden, enquired if he was satisfied with what was being done, Brooke replied that his mission had no military value, could not accomplish anything, and had every probability of turning into a disaster.
Leaving Southampton at night on 12 June, Brooke sailed to Cherbourg on a dirty Dutch steamer – there was no food on board, but Brooke’s wife had made him sandwiches. In a further sign of the dislocation and the bad state of Allied relations, the French harbour authorities would not let him disembark for several hours. When he did get ashore in heavy rain, it was in the middle of an air raid. To make things worse, the local British command had not been told that the General was coming. It was, Brooke noted, ‘avery unpleasant return trip’. 21
At 8 a.m. the next day, he set off on a six-hour drive to British headquarters at Le Mans, his journey much slowed down by refugees on the road. On arrival, Brooke took over command of all British troops in France, telling his predecessor, Henry Karslake, to fly home immediately. Then he continued his journey south to meet the French Commander-in-Chief in the government’s temporary resting place at Tours.
Maxime Weygand was away for the day, and, when they met the following morning, he said the French were no longer capable of organised fighting. Resources were exhausted. Many formations worn out. Organised defence had come to an end. The commander, who had injured his neck in a car crash, looked very wizened, Brooke noted.
After his confession of the plight of the armies he commanded, Weygand brought up a plan that seemed to point to an unsuspected spirit of resistance. The British and French governments had, he said, decided to defend the peninsula of Brittany with a new, 100-mile front line.
Brooke did not think much of this. Holding the front would require at least fifteen divisions which were simply not available. The Germans dominated the air. In ten days of fighting in France, seventy-five RAF planes had been shot down or destroyed on the ground and another 120 were
Heading back to the British base, Sweeney went looking for his friend, telling everyone he met from his unit that, if they saw him, they should tell him to be at the café at 5 p.m. Getting the word, Les turned up at the appointed hour. Joe and five others were waiting outside.
Sweeney opened the door, saying to his friend: ‘
Après vous
!’
‘Oh no Joe!’ Les replied. ‘After you!’
The half-dozen soldiers pushed Les inside. Then they closed the door, and went off to another café.
General Alan Brooke was less than pleased when he was sent back to France in the middle of June. The 57-year-old soldier, who would go on to become Britain’s Chief of Staff, had helped to command the evacuation from Dunkirk, sleeping for thirty-six hours after he reached his home in Hampshire. Then he was called to the War Office to be told he was going across the Channel to organise British troops left there to resist the German advance.
Brooke, who had been brought up in south-west France by his mother who preferred that country to Britain, recorded that this was one of his blackest moments. ‘I knew only too well the state of affairs that would prevail in France from now onwards,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘I had seen my hopes in the French Army gradually shattered . . . I had witnessed the realisation of my worst fears concerning its fighting value and morale and now I had no false conceptions as to what its destiny must inevitably be. To be sent back again into that cauldron with a new force to participate in the final stages of French disintegration wasindeed a dark prospect.’ 20
He asked the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir JohnDill, if he could refit two of the divisions which had come back from Dunkirk and take them with him to provide experienced troops. There was no time, he was told. When the Secretary for War, Anthony Eden, enquired if he was satisfied with what was being done, Brooke replied that his mission had no military value, could not accomplish anything, and had every probability of turning into a disaster.
Leaving Southampton at night on 12 June, Brooke sailed to Cherbourg on a dirty Dutch steamer – there was no food on board, but Brooke’s wife had made him sandwiches. In a further sign of the dislocation and the bad state of Allied relations, the French harbour authorities would not let him disembark for several hours. When he did get ashore in heavy rain, it was in the middle of an air raid. To make things worse, the local British command had not been told that the General was coming. It was, Brooke noted, ‘avery unpleasant return trip’. 21
At 8 a.m. the next day, he set off on a six-hour drive to British headquarters at Le Mans, his journey much slowed down by refugees on the road. On arrival, Brooke took over command of all British troops in France, telling his predecessor, Henry Karslake, to fly home immediately. Then he continued his journey south to meet the French Commander-in-Chief in the government’s temporary resting place at Tours.
Maxime Weygand was away for the day, and, when they met the following morning, he said the French were no longer capable of organised fighting. Resources were exhausted. Many formations worn out. Organised defence had come to an end. The commander, who had injured his neck in a car crash, looked very wizened, Brooke noted.
After his confession of the plight of the armies he commanded, Weygand brought up a plan that seemed to point to an unsuspected spirit of resistance. The British and French governments had, he said, decided to defend the peninsula of Brittany with a new, 100-mile front line.
Brooke did not think much of this. Holding the front would require at least fifteen divisions which were simply not available. The Germans dominated the air. In ten days of fighting in France, seventy-five RAF planes had been shot down or destroyed on the ground and another 120 were
Similar Books
