There was a great deal of sacrifice by the forces defending Calais which bought time for the Dunkirk and other evacuations. This fact seems to be forgotten. Regards Tom
Again many thanks Drew, that puts that matter to rest. The only thing we are missing is the number of civilians, but I doubt that we will ever know those. I see that only four Brits are given as leaving via Bordeaux: Suffolk's party was five, it included a chap from the Chamber of Commerce Paris, but only Major Golding was a serving soldier. WO 106/1615 gives the breakdown for 'others' as: French, 17,062; Polish, 24,352; Czech, 4,938; Belgian, 163 = 46,515
Hi, I'm new on here and have been going through the 1940 forum looking for answers. I recently received my granddad's service records and am wondering how accurate they can be considered to be. According to them he was with 154th field ambulance which, I have discovered, became part of Arkforce who were evacuated as part of Operation Cycle on 10th - 13th June. However his service and casualty form has no mention of his return to the UK until he appears in Dalbeattie on 27th June and his army form says he was 'overseas BEF' until 23rd June. I don't understand how it could have taken so long to get home, even if he went via Cherbourg which I believe a few did from Le Havre. There appears to be another date discrepancy in his records later on which makes me wonder whether I can take them as gospel. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Looks as if he came back as part of Operation Aerial, the last of these got back about 28 June. Those from the South of France were even later.
I would also suggest that during these chaotic times, and service personnel being who knows where that trying to keep an accurate and up to date set of records would be 'low' on the list of priorities, so there would be a period of 'catching up' on records as and when personnel finally reported back to their units base. So if he left Cherbourg on 13th June, then he presumably reported back to his base unit on the 27th, and that the 23rd June was just an 'official' or accounting date used for the end of the 'evacuation', add in a few days leave etc etc. In essence I don't believe that the dates are that far out considering the national and military situation in the UK during the time period you are looking at. Others may have a different view TD
Thank you. I also was wondering whether considering the circumstances there would possibly be official dates which might be put in documentation but not be necessarily accurate to the date so it's interesting that its been mentioned as an option.
I used to work in France and often went in and out via St Malo courtesy of Brittany Ferries. I remember on one occasion getting into conversation with an old chap who seemed to be staring at the ports lock gates for some reason. Turned out that the previous occasion he had been there was on a destroyer in 1940 when their departing gesture was to blow out the lock gates in an attempt to deny access to the port by the Germans.
Re St Malo, I came across this : http://theislandwiki.org/index.php?title=St_Malo_evacuation which also includes other 'stories' http://theislandwiki.org/index.php/A_sapper%27s_story_of_the_St_Malo_evacuation and also http://theislandwiki.org/index.php/Another_story_of_the_evacuation TD
21,376 British troops were evacuated through St Malo, between 16th and 19th June 1940. These included some of the Norman Force ALT was a British cargo ship that belonged to what became the LMS railway co. She saved some 2,000 troops .
Thanks all. I think Roy may be right and my grandad was evacuated first in Cycle then in Ariel. His unit was in Arkforce which was evacuated from Le Havre as part of Cycle but I've read now that approx. 9000 out of 11000 of the troops were taken to Cherbourg instead of England. They were then evacuated as part of Ariel which would explain some part of the date discrepancy.
I managed to find an account of the 154 field ambulance at the Wellcome library which lists their movements Jan -June 1940 which is very interesting. Sadly however it ends with the message to get to Le Havre. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a page missing... As for the unit diary, basically I'm somewhat scared of the cost of getting it done as I can't imagine that I would be able to go myself. I think I read somewhere on here (possibly on one of your posts) that the diaries for these type of units are huge.
grandadv You can reduce that cost dramatically by only requesting the pages between certain dates - if that helps TD
The diary you want is WO 177/739 154 Field Ambulance 1940 Mar.- Dec., 1942 Mar.- 1945 Sept. As you can see from the date range it covers nearly all of the war so I'd guess it will contain over a 1,000 pages. Can you not get to the National Archives yourself?
I was looking at the BBC History Website and came across this interesting report on HMT Lanastria used in Operation Ariel. I had no knowledge that the ships Name had been changed. To the many soles that perished, R.I.P. Regards Tom
TD, This is the actual Report that I mentioned. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/lancastria_01.shtml Other BBC News items. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/786292.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/765505.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventry_warwickshire/6385027.stm Sorry for not posting them at the time. Regards Tom
