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

that moment that the Blenheims arrived, hitting them sufficiently hard for
no further assault to come that evening.
General Alexander, meanwhile, had managed to get through to London
and just after 8 p.m. received his instructions, which were to continue
withdrawing his forces on the fifty-fifty basis with the French that had
earlier been put to Gort. This was relayed to the French, who could do little
but acquiesce. With Gort now gone, Alexander at least now had the
authority to act as he thought fit, coming up against Admiral Abrial at every
turn.
And it was clear that the eastern perimeter could not hold another day.
In the ditch that was still the Royal Fusiliers’ headquarters, orders were
received at 9 p.m. that they were to pull back and embark at La Panne. The
fighting had died down; the Germans never liked attacking much at night.
Out of nearly 800 men who had marched into Belgium a fortnight earlier,
only around 150 now remained. Gathering their remaining carriers, they
collected themselves together and under the cover of dusk headed down the
road to La Panne, now largely empty but pitted with shell craters and lined
by houses and buildings reduced to rubble.
It was almost dark by the time they reached the town of La Panne. They
abandoned their vehicles, immobilized them, then marched to a crossroads
near the centre of town. There they were halted by Movement Control Staff
for over an hour. As other units arrived, so their numbers swelled until the
town was dense with exhausted soldiers. Then the German guns opened fire
once more, and shells began to hit the town. Norman Field managed to take
cover in a kind of cellar window below a house. ‘It was all rather
frightening,’ he says. ‘It’s fascinating stuff, though, to see what happens
when these shells burst on the road – like white tad-poles whizzing around
because there are bits of white-hot metal.’ Whilst crouching there, he felt
his left hand move. Lifting it up, he could no longer move his fingers. ‘I
realized I’d been clobbered,’ he says, ‘but I didn’t feel a thing, not then.’
Shrapnel had ripped off the back of his hand. With the shelling, the
bottlenecked men had been hurriedly dispersed down to the beaches, so
Norman now got up and headed that way too, calling out, ‘Royal Fusiliers!
Royal Fusiliers!’ Eventually a voice called out, ‘Come and lie down here,’
so he did and found himself next to Jock Cleghorn, a Fusilier captain on the
brigade HQ staff, who then dressed Norman’s wound. Of the rest of the
battalion there was no sign. The shelling continued, while overhead a plane