Graves of those who were shot, including the French soldier. Just reading this thread and also the other excellent one by Andy. Good photos. Found this. CWGC do not give any more info, except his age: Name: VANPEE, ROBERT Initials: R Nationality: French Rank: Soldier Regiment: French Army Age: 38 Date of Death: 28/05/1940 Casualty Type: Foreign National Grave/Memorial Reference: 3. F. 25-32. Cemetery: ESQUELBECQ MILITARY CEMETERY
Geoff I believe he was on his own guarding a French Army dump when the SS Leibstandarte arrived. It's thought he took a shot at one of the SS officers perched on his armoured car and killed him. Vanpee was captured/surrendered and took into a nearby field and shot. He was found in a mass grave later in the war with some of those murdered in the barn hence why he is laid to rest amongst them in the CWGC Esquelbecq. Regards Andy
Having read Hitlers Last General....Wilhelm Mohnke last weekend which describes a lot of the events around Wormhoudt theres some very interesting,but sobering photos here, Thanks for putting them up though.
Hi Andy - you are right, the pond was dredged and the mound was made from it, so that could be Allen's tomb as well. Do you know if Bert Evans is still alive? Yes, we went to the museum - more of that later. Hi Paul, I came across a list of living BEF survivors and witness's to parts of the massacre that may be of interest you. The list is a few years old now but I suspect some of them may/must still be alive and are probably still in the same area. Survivors: Bert Evans - Northfields, Birmingham. John Lavelle - Kidderminster. Charles Daley - London. George Hopper - London. Richard Parry - By Lake Windermere. Reginald West - Great Barr, Birmingham George Hall - Cradley Heath, West Midlands. Alf Tombs - Hall Green, Birmingham. Jim Dutton - Wolverhampton. Witness's in one form or another: Bill Cordrey - Somerset. George Merry - Nuneaton. Col. L. Tomes - Hawkchurch, Axminster, Devon. Ref: Capt. Lynn-Allen. I was reading today that it is thought that he is most likely in one of the unmarked graves in Wormhout or Esquelbecq cemeteries. Hope they are of some interest mate. Andy
Thanks for that Andy - we hit a dead end with research on survivors and in the end didn't feature the massacre story, for reasons you will see when the programmes go out next year.
Episodes 1 and 2 are finished and have been given the thumbs up by BBC1, and Episode 3 will be finished soon, but we have no idea of transmission dates as yet.
Survivor John Lavelle was my great uncle and lived a long life still carrying his wounds. Having 4 children. 3 boys and 1 girl.
Thanks for posting this information Paul. I never knew about this massacre until now. I have since, just had a read about it on Wikipedia and can't believe that the SS did this and got away with it due to insufficient evidence! .........Outrageous.
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/20061-the-battle-and-massacre-of-wormhout-28th-may-1940/ It wasn't the only one that took place in May
