English Casualties in Ville-sur-Ancre, 20.05.1940

Hello All,

I am one of the authors of the chronicle of Panzerregiment 1:
Panzerregiment 1 | From origin to the Polish Campaign | tank regiment 1 wehrmacht | Lucerne, Switzerland

We are currently working on Volume II (French Campaign). To this , I am searching for the identity and unit of three (other reports say five) English soldiers who fell in battle on May 20, 1940, in Ville-sur-Ancre near Amiens. I have two German battle reports. These describe two British (according to the desciption) reconnaissance vehicles that were destroyed in combat. I would now be interested to know who that was. Is there a way to do this?

PS: I found the graves of four Englishmen in Ville-sur-Ancre, but according to the gravestones, they died on May 21, 1940. However, the battle definitely took place on May 20, 1940. Could these be the men whose deaths were recorded incorrectly?

 

Luckystrike,

Welcome aboard. May 1940 is not my focus, so hopefully those who are will be along.

There is one thread here that refers to Ville-sur-Ancre, though only for one dead, who is buried elsewhere see: 6346162 Corporal Stanley Frank WICKHAM, 7th Bn. Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment: 21/05/1940 and https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2952787/stanley-frank-wickham/

It is possible that the four men (one is unknown) were badly wounded on 20/5/1940 and succumbed to their injuries the next day. As you will know after the advent of the blitzkrieg chaos often occurred. The CWGC does not list an unknown grave (not my field, others may explain).

One way to find more would be consult the regimental history of the Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment (assuming one exists, possibly for the regt. not the battalion and their War Diary, which may mention what happened those days.

I cannot readily identify the 7th's War Diaries as being available here. I expect many WD vanished during the retreat etc. The format of the a WD for the 6th is available on: 6th Battalion Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment 1940 the thread's author Drew5233 is a May 1940 expert, so I will alert him to your arrival and he may known if the 7th WD exists.

Wiki has a short passage about the 7th in France 1940 and their list of references shows only regimental books. See: Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment - Wikipedia

I assume since the dead are from an infantry regiment the 'reconnaissance vehicles' were Bren Gun Carriers aka officially the Universal carrier. See: Universal Carrier - Wikipedia Note it had a three-man crew.

 

As David said, welcome to the site.

CWGC shows me “only” three casualties in the cemetery for that date (I did a search from 10 May - 30 June 1940 to cover it). These three soldiers of 7th Battalion, Royal West Kents:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/f...it=&AgeOfDeath=0&Honours=null&AdditionalInfo=

I can’t see a fourth, but that may just be my bad searching abilities!




(images by Claude Laignel, findagrave.com)

I don’t know the answer to your query, sorry, but it is possible that one or more members here may have the relevant war diary. Possibly Andy, member Drew5233.

 

Is this the action in which these men were either killed or, perhaps, wounded. As David says, is it possible these men died of their wounds next day?


(extracts from “Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory” by Julian Thompson)

 

Martin,

Given that description (in Post above) I doubt there is a WD by the 7th. I have PM'd Drew anyway. Thanks for the history.

Boys AT Rifles with half-strength ammunition, classic.

 

Thanks for your comments. It is always difficult to reconstruct events based on battle reports. These are often brief, do not accurately reflect the locations, or simply leave things out. There was heavy fighting near Albert that day. However, Panzerregiment 1 was not involved in this. The regiment was passing by to the south and was on its way to Amiens when, and this is my assumption, they spotted the enemy on their left. A small combat group of II./ Panzerregiment 1 turned off the road and encountered two vehicles near Ville-sur-Ancre, which they described as "Spähpanzer" (reconnaissance tanks). But it wouldn't be the first time that reports about the vehicle type were wrong. The two British vehicles knocked out a Panzer II, so they must have had a caliber of at least 20 mm. A machine gun would not have penetrated the front. The commander was killed and the gunner wounded. Then the two vehicles were put out of action with machine guns, so they must have been only lightly armored. Now the two reports differ from each other. One mentions 8 Englishmen, 5 of whom were killed, and the other mentions 5, 3 of whom fell. They probably attacked the Germans and were caught by a machine gun. The whole operation took about 45 minutes. Another Oberleutnant was serious wounded by a english bullet. For him the war was over. I drew this sketch; in any case, that should be roughly the location according to the two battle reports.

 

The (French) site of the communal cemetery refers to four casualties, amongst which one John Doe, all belonging to Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, KIA on May 21st 1940.

 

Ah, thank you.

 

I had a quick look through the battalion diary and nothing obvious jumped out but I don't have the time to read it properly. I can send you a copy of the diary via dropbox today for a £7.40 donation to a JustGiving page I'm supporting.

 

Thanks, yes please. I would like to have a copy. How can I send the payment?

 

Andy won't mind me sharing the link.

£100,000 Pledge to the RAF Benevolent Fund

 

Payment has been sended.

There is an increasing likelihood that the two German reports have once again confused fundamental facts. I more and more believe that it was not the English but the French who were involved. I have a large photo archive, including two estates of photos from the regimental staff (Panzerregiment 1), the sub unit who was involved in the battle on 20 May 1940 and lost a panzer. One estate includes a grave of the fallen German panzer commander and these two burnt-out reconnaissance vehicles. Unfortunately, the location and time are not specified, but the vehicles would fit the description perfectly.

 

Even I know those photos are of French armoured cars and somewhere here there are photos of such vehicles from near Dunkirk, IIRC by Christian L.

 

The problem, however, is that these two photos are only included in the estate, without any indication of their location. So I don't know for sure whether they are the two cars. At the moment, it is only a guess. I can only precisely identify the photo of the grave based on the name of the fallen soldier.

 

There is a photo of the French armoured cars on: https://ww2talk.com/index.php?attachments/upload_2023-10-13_17-29-40-png.367342/

Christain L. id'd the cars as:

From Post 61 in: Against all odds – Saint-Valery-en-Caux (June 1940)

Elsewhere he refers (at a different place) to:

From Post 44 (no photo): Now believed 1 AA (not 2 AA) Regt RA 1940 query ?

Success! Two B&W photos of AMD 178 are in Post 5: Brandenburg battalion raid on Nieuport, May 27th 1940

 

I am quite certain of the locations of the AMD Panhard 178 wrecks referred to in the links referred to hereabove and am confident these were nowhere near the Amiens/Ville-sur-Ancre region.

It is very easy to find photos of AMD 178 wrecks. However, since a great many of these were abandoned, destroyed or scuttled all over the western front, I expect it to be very difficult to confirm or disprove a French connection related to this specific incident.

MfG aus Belgien,
Christian

 

Last night, I went through my library in order to try to find something relevant, but I'm afraid I'm none the wiser... I also tried my luck visiting numerous French websites - nothing of consequence... This did not surprise me for this incident was, after all, with all due respect, nothing more than a skirmish.

From the German perspective, it all adds up nicely as illustrated on the map hereunder (Source: Lexicon der Wehrmacht) that depicts the Wehrmacht's advance towards the sea on May 20th. the 1.PD is exactly where it was supposed to be, i.e. in the vicinity of Ville-sur-Ancre.



As to the French, things are a little more 'complicated'... The very chaotic situation at the time makes it very hard to make a rock-solid determination.
I have an hypothesis though, but I'm wasn't able to make it stick (not yet anyway).

On May 20th, when the incident took place, some disparate elements of the French 2nd Army (2ième Armée) that had lost contact with the 1st Army, were heading south, trying to cross and regroup behind the Somme. Some, however, were overtaken by the swiftness of the German advance. As far as I could make out, the only surviving unit of the 2nd Army being equipped with AMD Panhard 178 armoured reconnaissance vehicles, was the 5e RAM (Régiment d'AutoMitrailleuses). So, IF the "Spähpanzer" encountered by Panzerregiment.1 were indeed French and those belonged to the 5e RAM, the German's vehicle identification would have been correct. The best way to confirm this, would be to consult the 5e RAM's JMO (Journal de Marche et d'Opérations) if it survived the war.

Another plausible scenario: on that same day, Panzerregiment.1 overtook and fought not only the retreating French but also the 7Bn Royal West Kents.

I rest my case. At this point, I'm afraid only a French military historian could perhaps provide the necessary insights.

KR,
Christian

 

Thanks. I wrote an email this morning to Ville-sur-Ancre. Perhaps there are some records or information about this event in the community. I could well imagine that. Here in Germany, there are lots of local historians who study the history of their own communities and have lots of information that isn't in any books.

 

Could you please keep us in the loop? I for one am very curious to see where this research is going to lead us.

 

Yes, of course. Let's see what comes of it. You also need a little luck with this kind of research.