The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

19
Dunkirk: In the Balance
ON THE AFTERNOON of 28 May, Lord Gort had moved his command post to
the Belgian King’s summer palace overlooking the dunes and sea at La
Panne, just inside the Belgian border and some nine miles east of Dunkirk.
‘And so here we are back on the shores of France on which we landed with
such high hearts over eight months ago,’ jotted Henry Pownall that night. ‘I
think we were a gallant band who little deserve this ignominious end to our
efforts.’ It was incredible to think they had been pushed back to the sea in
just three weeks. ‘For myself,’ he added, ‘I am still stunned. It seems all a
bad dream from which I hope to wake.’
At least he had reached the beaches, which was more than could be said
for the majority of the BEF. Most, however, would be on the move that
night. Sid Nuttall and the 1st Border Regiment, still at the bottom of the
British corridor to the north-west of Lille, had been given orders to
withdraw by thinning out companies and then to rendezvous at Ploegsteert
with the rest of the brigade using lorries abandoned by the Royal Engineers.
Sid and his mates in ‘C’ Company still had no real idea of what was going
on, although it hadn’t taken much to realize things were going badly wrong.
The battalion had also suffered a number of casualties and was, like
everyone else in the BEF, struggling with the lack of ammunition and
rations.
At around 3 p.m., the battalion began pulling into Ploegsteert, the trucks
covered by a screen of Bren gun carriers from the Carrier Platoon. There
was, however, no sign of the rest of the brigade, so it continued onwards to
Poperinge, a few miles to the west of Ypres. There the troops found an
artillery regiment. ‘Whacking great guns they were,’ says Sid. ‘They were
shooting their ammunition off because they were going to destroy the guns.’
The battalion learned that the RV for 42nd Division was now Killem, a
village just to the south of the Dunkirk perimeter. With the artillery
booming and offering them cover, the men set off again. It was now
evening and they finally learned that they were headed for Dunkirk. ‘We
began meeting more and more people,’ says Sid, ‘and seeing more and