Were German Prisoners of War killed near Arras, May 1940?

Harman doesn't list a blind bibliography. Instead, at the rear of the book after the Appendices, he has a "Notes on Sources" commentary. In respect of Chapter Six, the entry reads as follows -

"The Arras adventure has been described often, and many writers have followed Rommel's exciting account of what it was like on the receiving end, at which he got the impression that larger british forces were involved than the four battalions actually engaged. I was generously helped at the Durham Light Infantry Museum and the Light Infantry Office in Durham city. The war diaries of the units concerned are fascinating. Those who consult them in the PRO must promise not to reveal information about individuals named. I have treated some personal interviews about the fighting on the same basis; notably, those concerning the murder by British soldiers of their German prisoners."


So to ME that looks as if the DLI Museum put him in touch with DLI veterans from Arras??? :mellow:

 

Harman's account seems a little bilious - is he related to Harriet? Admittedly, I'm contrasting it to 8 DLI's own history which offers a slightly more positive view of a TA battalion going to war.

From their perspective, the cemetery was not a strongpoint, merely a place where the Germans had 'taken refuge'. They record the 18 survivors of the French tank attack; I imagine this book was the source for 8 DLIs bits in the 'official' regimental history.

Incidentally, C Coy mopped up the cemetery, it was B Coy who came under fire from the French tanks. The blu-on-blue was later in the day and also involved 260 Bty of 65 (Norfolk Yeo) A/Tk Regt who destroyed 4 French tanks for the loss of one gun.

 

Quote;- "These were Territorial Army battalions, recruited in the depressed mining and shipbuilding communities of north-east England. By tradition the maximum height for a light infantryman was five feet two inches (1.57 metres). County Durham, at the end of twenty years of catastrophic unemployment in the coal-pits and shipyards, had plenty of people small enough and willing to take a job as a soldier. But nobody had seriously expected them to have to fight. As miners, they had a reputation for building wonderful trenches, and they had spent the war so far employed as labourers. Every single platoon of both battalions was commnaded by a second lieutenant - lads fresh from grammar school, or clerks in their forties who had seen service in the previous war. Most platoons had no sergeant, and practically all non-commissioned officers were either First War veterans, in their forties or new recruits themselves. The Durhams had half the official supply of Bren light-machine guns, no radios and no supporting artillery. These deficiencies should be remembered in the record of their conduct in battle."



The above quote ...does it refer to 6th and 8th DLI why not 9th DLI who made up the trio of 151bgde and followed in reserve during the attack? 50th Div were one of the few fully equipped motorised Divisions in the BEF and trained as such right up until the main counter attack the lack of marching fitness would have had an adverse effect because it was never envisaged that these motorised divisions would have to march long distances.The comments the author has made regarding radios ,bren guns and no supporting artillery seem to best describe the 10th DLI 11th DLI and the 12th DLI (Tyneside Scottish) who were raised as sister battalions to those of the 6th 8th 9th DLI .Forming a duplicate brigade 70bde(on paper)battalions had only reached platoon training there were no 3" mortars all transport was hired from civilian sources in fact they were only sent for an initial period of five months after which they were to be brought home,no artillery was sent to accompany them they had no radio equipment,only 14 bren guns per battalion (Enough really because most men had not completed the war course on the rifle!)
This description seems to fit perfectly with that given by the author...but these battalions were not part of Frankforce..five weeks later they were fighting for their lives using their rifles against German panzers.
The comment regarding inexperienced officers..Hmmm in 1939-40 who would have had experienced officers...no-one. The 6th DLI,in Harry Moses The Faithful Sixth are indeed credited with the capture of hundreds of prisoners Major Jeffreys recounted that one group had surrended to him and they had been handed over to a L/cpl to take back to the PoW cages for interigation..another 100 or so are said to have been handed over to a platoon of men and Two officers who walked slap bang into a German Armoured reconaissance unit after mistaking them for a French armoured unit. The fact that French soldiers stripped German soldiers is mentioned in quite a few publications..because the DLI were there does not implicate them in the act..did they attempt to stop it..who knows ..probably not...did the DLI murder 400 Germans??? On what evidence..none offered by the Germans and facts out of context to support a novel....not good enough.

 

Idler -

I imagine this book was the source for 8 DLIs bits in the 'official' regimental history


Given that he didn;t publish until 1980...I would guess it's the other way round, he's referencing the official histories and war diaries in his book?

 

...does it refer to 6th and 8th DLI why not 9th DLI


They weren't involved in the RTR-turning-over-prisoners issue?

The comments the author has made regarding radios ,bren guns and no supporting artillery seem to best describe the 10th DLI 11th DLI and the 12th DLI (Tyneside Scottish) who were raised as sister battalions to those of the 6th 8th 9th DLI .....This description seems to fit perfectly with that given by the author...but these battalions were not part of Frankforce

I would assume seeing that he'd spent time with the Museum, the regimental depot office, veterans of the events AND had been to Kew and had the war diaries to reference he was on safe ground reporting the condition of 6 and 8 DLI?

Again - he's not interested in the DLI as a cohesive unit....JUST those elements in the frontline of the attack at Arras.

The comment regarding inexperienced officers..Hmmm in 1939-40 who would have had experienced officers...no-one


In context he's not talking about combat experience - just COMMAND experience. Hence the comments about the "foot check", which was a pretty serious ommission on the part of a platoon offcier - and the comments on them not being able to hold their own troops in discipline in combat conditions.

On what evidence..none offered by the Germans


I was wondering about this...but think of the local circumstances; after 7 RTR basically trundled right over and cut apart Totenkopf with MG fire - even Rommel recounts hearing the sound of the Matilda I's MGs across the front of the attack as it bit into his rear echelons, rather than the II's 2pdrs - the entire area would have been lousy with W-SS corpses anyway :mellow: The encounter with the German convoy itself reads as particularly bloody; remember exactly HOW tankers go about checking that "corpses" are not faking it...

Whatever happened in the detail - the W-SS seemed to believe that SOMETHING had...and after all - as well as 6 and 8 DLI, the French tankers and 7RTR...THEY were the other party in the immediate vicinity!

 

As for this -

The fact that French soldiers stripped German soldiers is mentioned in quite a few publications..because the DLI were there does not implicate them in the act..did they attempt to stop it..who knows ..probably not...


French soldiers? In the DLI Official History it says -

""C" Company, in company with some French tanks, the attacked a cemetery near Duisans...."

So - in front of some 30 or so accompanying BRITISH infantry, French TANKERS debussed, accepted the German surrender, stripped them, then got back in their tanks...?

:mellow:

 

As for this -

The fact that French soldiers stripped German soldiers is mentioned in quite a few publications..because the DLI were there does not implicate them in the act..did they attempt to stop it..who knows ..probably not...

French soldiers? In the DLI Official History it says -


Quote:
""C" Company, in company with some French tanks, the attacked a cemetery near Duisans...."

So - in front of some 30 or so accompanying BRITISH infantry, French TANKERS debussed, accepted the German surrender, stripped them, then got back in their tanks...?

:mellow:


Which DLI official History? Lets see exactly what the `8th DLI at War `has to say about the incident in the Graveyard written by serving officers at the time Major Lewis and Major English.

Quote
`C` Company was soon in action.Supported by a few French tanks they attacked a cemetery about half a mile to the west of Duisans where over a hundred Germans had taken refuge when the British armour had passed through the village.The French tanks raked the cemetery area with machine gun fire and when the infantry advanced they found only eighteen Germans alive.The remainder had been mown down by the French gunners.The survivours were handed over to the French who stripped them to the skin and forced them to lie face downwards in the road until it was time to take them away...
Page 16


The refrences the author made to the DLI being poorly equipped etc was not true of all the DLI battalions if he was quoting information relating to 10/11/12 DLI this should have been made clear in his text and not make a statement so far out of context. The 6th 8th and 9th were well equipped with both weapons transport and support units that is why both the 5th and 50th Divisions were included in so many `No retreat` orders because these units were best able to hold up the German advance. We do`nt know what happened in 1940 very few who were there did ,such was the confusion,but I will not sit here some seventy years later and cast any un-proven shadows on the honour of those men, irrespective of unit or nationality, on heersay (The DLI museum and Regimental Office both denied the incident ever happened at the time these books were published) without one piece of evidence. I retire to the pavillion on this one


Verrieres

 

As per Verrieres, I'm struggling to tie-in Harman's description of what are evidently battalions sent for labour and training duties with what I know of 50th Division. That he had access to museum and archive documents including the war diaries does not mean that he didn't confuse his notes nor that he may have been badly sub-edited.

The IWM photo archive includes numerous pictures of the Motorcycle battalion of 50th Div (4 RNF) training at Fontaine as early as January 1940. Their columns are disciplined and their off road manouvering evidently practised.

I think that it's also wrong to view the Territorial Army as an ill-trained rabble. There were many new recruits but also many pre-war regulars recalled from the reserve.

A 'Google' of Harman's name reveals him to be a 'journalist and broadcaster' who seems to have been on the political side of things. He wrote for 'Spectator' and also for 'Marxism Today' and never seems reluctant to add his political viewpoint to any article.

I found an extract from a review that he had written over a 'What if' historical book and read the following :-

"...In contrast, Harman exposed a wholly different problem: "Historians, notoriously bound to recorded facts, are not often at ease with speculation, and several of the dozen, offered the chance to tell a fib, fail to tell a big enough one. Journalists, who habitually resent the truth when it spoils a good story, might have done the job better."

Let's not forget that he's a journalist and not a historian. He seems to have insider knowledge here...

If 8 DLI did carry out large scale killing of prisoners rather than release them then this deserves to be known and the facts sought out even at this late stage. That the actions, if true, may have led to retalliatory killings at Le Paradis and Wormhoudt makes the whole saga even worse.

However, I remain puzzled by the lack of evidence on the German side. Why did Knochlein for instance, in his defence, not use the excuse that his men were angered by British actions a few days before ?

German burial parties could surely tell the difference between disarmed prisoners and combat deaths ? 100 bodies at one location is a lot and accounts of Paradis and Wormhoudt all make it clear that the troops following and the locals had no difficulty recognising what had happened.

Going on from this, what was official policy on the abandonment of prisoners if it was no longer possible to hold them ? It must have happened quite a lot in North Africa I assume.

 

The aspect of non-appearing SS-TK div. casualties has on a number of occasions been mentioned. The OFFICIAL returns as of May 21st, from day and action reports list the following - 39 Killed, 66 Wounded and 2 Missing...from Charles Syndor's Soldiers of Destruction...

However - what if the massacre wasn't discovered until AFTER the day/action reports for the 21st were sumbitted? :mellow: Remember - all this happened rather later in the afternoon of the 21st, and it's not impossible at all that the boduies weren't discovered/recovered or accounted for until later, and thus didn't appear in figures for the 21st.

There's no other confirmation of those figures for the 21st EXCEPT day and action reports; Harman, later in the Aras story and unrelated, states that Rommel, in reporting casualties for the battle of Arras counted only his own men, and not the SS and other German troops. He believes that the reported German losses were therefore understated. Was he mistaken in that conclusion?

As for why any investigation never appeared - it may well be that the Wehrmacht at command level only became aware of a massacre of Totenkopf POWs some days after the 21st of May, as a result of its investigation of the two massacres carried out by the W-SS on the 27th and 28th of May. If that was the case, it may have decided not to take the matter any further, since the killing of German prisoners had been balanced by German retaliatory massacres, and it was therefore better to hush the whole thing up. Furthermore, the German Army's rivalry with the Waffen-SS may have prompted it not to do anything to help it.

After all - while there may NOT have been an official war crime investigation and trial, we don't if there were or were not any investigations BELOW that level. There's a whole tier of activities invisible to us.

 

I think that it's also wrong to view the Territorial Army as an ill-trained rabble


Rich - he's referring specifically to Territorial units used as labour units. If you take a look at Montefiore's Dunkirk, he says basically the same....if not actually a lot worse...about the labour battalions! :mellow:

A 'Google' of Harman's name reveals him to be a 'journalist and broadcaster' who seems to have been on the political side of things. He wrote for 'Spectator' and also for 'Marxism Today' and never seems reluctant to add his political viewpoint to any article.

I found an extract from a review that he had written over a 'What if' historical book and read the following :-

"...In contrast, Harman exposed a wholly different problem: "Historians, notoriously bound to recorded facts, are not often at ease with speculation, and several of the dozen, offered the chance to tell a fib, fail to tell a big enough one. Journalists, who habitually resent the truth when it spoils a good story, might have done the job better."

Let's not forget that he's a journalist and not a historian. He seems to have insider knowledge here...


And let's not forget other writers have started as journalists - such as Max Hastings!

 

The refrences the author made to the DLI being poorly equipped etc was not true of all the DLI battalions if he was quoting information relating to 10/11/12 DLI this should have been made clear in his text and not make a statement so far out of context.


For the SECOND time - He is NOT talking about ALL the DLI battalions AS HE DOES MAKE QUITE CLEAR IN THE BOOK. Have you read it?

As a P.S. -

Which DLI official History? Lets see exactly what the `8th DLI at War `has to say about the incident in the Graveyard written by serving officers at the time Major Lewis and Major English.

Quote
`C` Company was soon in action.Supported by a few French tanks they attacked a cemetery about half a mile to the west of Duisans where over a hundred Germans had taken refuge when the British armour had passed through the village.The French tanks raked the cemetery area with machine gun fire and when the infantry advanced they found only eighteen Germans alive.The remainder had been mown down by the French gunners.The survivours were handed over to the French who stripped them to the skin and forced them to lie face downwards in the road until it was time to take them away...
Page 16


So according to "8th DLI At War" OVER a hundred Germans were shot up in the cemetery, and only 18 were left alive at the end. That means over 83 SS-TK WERE killed, doesn't it?

Sort of proves Syndor's casualty figures for SS-TK on the 21st wrong...they're at least 100% out...

 

I can see both sides here but I'm still on the fence on this

One thing I would like to add to the debate is that Knochlein's defence did bring this incident up as one of the reasons for the massacre at Paradis along with the well debated 'dum-dum' bullets theory and the lesser debated white flag or Nazi flag as a rouse to bring the SS out in the open and when subsequently shot by The Norfolks-I think this happened at Le Cornet Malo which was defended by 'C' Company I believe.
Last Stand At Paradis-Richard Lane.


However, I remain puzzled by the lack of evidence on the German side. Why did Knochlein for instance, in his defence, not use the excuse that his men were angered by British actions a few days before ?


I would expect a condemmed man (He must of known he was going to be executed) to pull the stops out as a means to get off. But the bit that gets me is, who were the DLI chaps who siad it happened? I think this is the key as it stands at the moment.

Regards
Andy

PS. Great civil debate chaps

 

For the SECOND time - He is NOT talking about ALL the DLI battalions AS HE DOES MAKE QUITE CLEAR IN THE BOOK. Have you read it?

Phylo, you're the one who quoted Harman as saying it referred to 6th and 8th DLI. Jim's point (and mine too) is that they weren't labour battalions in 50th Div and they were properly equipped.

I haven't read the book. As I mentioned before, the prejudicial title has been enough to put me off so I'm relying on your accurate reporting here.

I am quite prepared to admit that my background is one of support for the British Armed forces and I sincerely hope that there was no large scale killing of German prisoners. Harman's political agenda and his obvious dislike of British institutions which lets him compare them badly with those of Nazi Germany in order to make his point mean that he is probably not the writer to convince me otherwise.

re. Drew's correction regarding Knochlein, I have clearly slipped up there. My reading of not very detailed accounts of the subsequent proceedings has let me down.

I'm sure that there were local incidents but I still can't come to terms with the alleged scale. I can well imagine that a large number of bodies in a walled, cramped French graveyard could easily give the impression of executions. The symbolism is all there - long walls, graves and gun-shot wounds.

Harman's journalistic disinclination to name sources and names because the War Diaries prohibt disclosure of the official version (as they did at the time) is most convenient. I have visions of a journalist sidling up to an alcoholic old soldier in a Durham pub and plying him with drink until the story changed from not accepting a surrender to shooting 400 (Would they have expended the ammunition ?)

As far as I can tell, Harman had never before and has never since published on military history. I struggle to believe that his motivation in writing was to give us a true and accurate account of the events of May 1940.

 

Phylo, you're the one who quoted Harman as saying it referred to 6th and 8th DLI. Jim's point (and mine too) is that they weren't labour battalions in 50th Div and they were properly equipped.

I haven't read the book. As I mentioned before, the prejudicial title has been enough to put me off so I'm relying on your accurate reporting here


Rich, that wasn't an answer to YOU!

 

Phylo its not the author but your quote which is out of context!

Quote from post
The "action" starts around Page 80 of Chapter 6 "The Fight At Arras", and is concerned with events around the counterattack at Arras. Frankforce comprised two tank battalions and "two half trained infantry battalions" - the 6th and 8th DLI...



Quote:
"These were Territorial Army battalions, recruited in the depressed mining and shipbuilding communities of north-east England. By tradition the maximum height for a light infantryman was five feet two inches (1.57 metres). County Durham, at the end of twenty years of catastrophic unemployment in the coal-pits and shipyards, had plenty of people small enough and willing to take a job as a soldier. But nobody had seriously expected them to have to fight. As miners, they had a reputation for building wonderful trenches, and they had spent the war so far employed as labourers. Every single platoon of both battalions was commnaded by a second lieutenant - lads fresh from grammar school, or clerks in their forties who had seen service in the previous war. Most platoons had no sergeant, and practically all non-commissioned officers were either First War veterans, in their forties or new recruits themselves. The Durhams had half the official supply of Bren light-machine guns, no radios and no supporting artillery. These deficiencies should be remembered in the record of their conduct in battle."



What does the above imply? Where does it say in your quote that this refers to other DLI battalions? The only two you mention is 6th and 8th and what I am saying is the quoted passage is misleading simply because it does not relate to the units involved or mentioned in your post.


I do not dispute that the SS men were killed in the graveyard if indeed they were SS , the fact that the passage implies that the French tankers Did mow them down is my arguement against the original question posed in the thread title
Durham Light Infantry Massacre 400 German Prisoners near Arras? answer no they did`nt..French tankers killed some but wheres the evidence to say the DLI did? There is`nt none! Please don`t use quotes out of context as I`ve said they`re misleading...have I read the book? Not for over twenty five years and if I remember correctly not all of it based on the press reaction and veterans denial..I`m not into fiction and fantasy.

Verrieres

 

I'm sure that there were local incidents but I still can't come to terms with the alleged scale. I can well imagine that a large number of bodies in a walled, cramped French graveyard could easily give the impression of executions


There's another wrinkle to that...

Once the French/British scratch force overran the cemetery - would they have JUST left weapons laying around??? Cleaning up the action site - looks like they were there for some time - guns chucked in a pile, even behind a wall....the scene would indeed LOOK like a massacre of unarmed troops had taken place...

 

have I read the book? Not for over twenty five years

What does the above imply? Where does it say in your quote that this refers to other DLI battalions? The only two you mention is 6th and 8th and what I am saying is the quoted passage is misleading simply because it does not relate to the units involved or mentioned in your post.

May I recommend then that you refresh your memory of what's in Chapter Six of Harman's Book?

For THERE you will see that on page 80 the paragraph IMMEDIATELY before that ends -

"......To support the armoured battalions, Franklyn assigned two battalions of infantry, the Sixth and Eighth Durham Light Infantry (6 and 8 DLI).
These were Territorial Army battalions, recruited in the depressed mining and shipbuilding communities of north-east England. By tradition the maximum height for a light infantryman was five feet two inches (1.57 metres). County Durham, at the end of twenty years of catastrophic unemployment in the coal-pits and shipyards, had plenty of people small enough and willing to take a job as a soldier. But nobody had seriously expected them to have to fight. As miners, they had a reputation for building wonderful trenches, and they had spent the war so far employed as labourers. Every single platoon of both battalions was commnaded by a second lieutenant - lads fresh from grammar school, or clerks in their forties who had seen service in the previous war. Most platoons had no sergeant, and practically all non-commissioned officers were either First War veterans, in their forties or new recruits themselves. The Durhams had half the official supply of Bren light-machine guns, no radios and no supporting artillery. These deficiencies should be remembered in the record of their conduct in battle."

So thus we can see that Harman was SPECIFICALLY referring only to 6th and 8th Battalions Durham Light Infantry, not any of the other DLI battalions.

 

Rich its not the author but your quote which is out of context!Verrieres

...erm not my quotes. I haven't quoted since my reference to Blaxland on page 1

"Rich, that wasn't an answer to YOU! "

Phylo, I know it wasn't intended for me but I can only read your rendering of Harman as implying that 6th and 8th DLI were labour battalions which as far as I can ascertain, they weren't.

I really do think that the book we're discussing is based on journalistic levels of proof rather than historical accuracy.

 

Can I ask if this Harman chaps book is the only one suggesting that their was something untoward?

 

Rich, I think there's a considerable difference between, say, a part-equiped and -rostered unit USED as a labour unit....and one "designated" a labour unit Hence Harman's descriptions of 6 and 8 DLI; trained - but short on equipment, under-roster on officers, and used for labour. Doesn't mean they weren't trained light infantry, however...they obviously DID have 2pdrs be be ABLE to shoot up the french tanks they later cooperated with! if they weren't I doubt Franklyn would have considered using them....Montefiore's description of "proper" labour units is of them even being short of personal small arms, or ammunition for what they DID have.