I think I have “located” one of the areas where lots of cars, trucks etc were abandoned. I had been mislead by the caption “Dünkirchen” on the back of this picture that I found a long time ago:
But then I discovered more and more pictures from that area, and the captions in several different Wehrmacht albums all say “Saint Nazaire”…
This means that the line up with the Austin ambulances at the beginning of this thread must have been Saint Nazaire!
And judging by the fence and the ditch, these “old” pictures (see the early posts of this thread) are also Saint Nazaire:
To put these pictures in their historic perspective, here’s some additional information on Saint Nazaire in 1940: Background: Although Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk had evacuated much of the fighting element of the British Expeditionary Force, some combat units from 1st Armoured Division and Beauman Division and more than 150,000 support and line-of-communication troops had been cut-off to the south by the German "dash to the sea". In addition, the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Division had been rushed to France to bolster the defence of the west of the country. All these forces became known as the "Second BEF" and General Sir Alan Brooke was returned from England to command them. Upon his arrival on 13 June, he quickly realised that there was no chance of success for them and that the French plan to fall back and make a stand in Brittany was unrealistic. Accordingly, in a telephone call on the evening of 14 June, he was able to persuade the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, that all the British troops in France ought to be disengaged and evacuated. Historian Max Hastings asserts; "in that conversation, Brooke saved almost 200,000 men from death or captivity". Evacuation from Brest, St Nazaire and La Pallice: The evacuation from the more westerly ports was commanded by Admiral Sir Martin Eric Nasmith, the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Approaches Command based in Devonport. The evacuation from Brest was undertaken by a large flotilla of ships including the troopships Arandora Star, Otranto, and Strathaird. 28,145 British and 4,439 Allied personnel, mostly RAF groundcrew, were taken off on 16 and 17 June without any major interference by the Luftwaffe and were landed at Plymouth. Waiting at St Nazaire were a large number of British Army support and logistic units, RAF personnel, Belgian, Czech and Polish troops as well as British civilians. The flotilla sent included the large troopships Georgic, Duchess of York, Franconia, RMS Lancastria and Oronsay. The Franconia was damaged by bombs en route and returned to Plymouth. Most of the larger ships had to anchor in Quiberon Bay because of the difficulty of navigating the narrow channel up the Loire estuary to St Nazaire. During 17 June, troops were ferried out from St Nazaire to the large troopships via destroyers and coasters. The troopships were under orders to embark as many personnel as possible and soon became very crowded. At 2 pm there was an air raid by German bombers and the Oronsay was hit by a bomb on the bridge. In a second raid at 3:45, the Lancastria was hit by four bombs, which penetrated the hold packed with troops and ruptured the fuel oil tanks. Within 20 minutes the ship heeled over and sank; although 2,447 of those on board were saved, there was a death toll of around 4,000 souls (estimates vary from under 3,000 to 5,800), the largest loss of life in British maritime history. The last British troops left on the morning of 18 June in two convoys of small merchant ships and headed for Plymouth. Due to faulty intelligence which suggested that the Germans were closer than they actually were, much valuable equipment was left behind. A final mission arrived at St Nazaire on 19 June to evacuate 8,000 Polish troops who had been reported to have arrived at the port; in the event, there were only 2,000. Further south at La Pallice (the commercial harbour of La Rochelle), the senior British naval officer found that no ships had been sent for the British and Polish troops waiting at the port. He therefore requisitioned a number of French merchant ships and left on 18 June. Thereafter, two flotillas of British ships arrived to pick up late arriving Poles; in all, 10,000 British and more than 4,000 Polish personnel were rescued from La Pallice. (from Wikipedia) Jan
This one's interesting not so much for the poor upturned 7hp Austin with its 'PASS' plate but for the signpost to 'Houtem' which is the part of Veurne (Furnes) that lies against the border with France.
It was painted on the back of the reversible 'Arm of Service' serial plate. With the intention of keeping convoys (which simply followed the vehicle in front) moving, any vehicle which broke down or had to stop turned the plate round to show 'PASS' which meant that any subsequent vehicles were to pass the stationary one. In an era of slow moving vehicles on narrow roads in columns that were miles long, this may have seemed quite a priority.
