equipment. In order to amputate limbs, the doctors attempted to use knives until a rusty hacksaw was found in the corridors of the citadel cellars. This was soon sterilized and put to work.
For four days the defenders hung on. Short of food, water and, above all, ammunition, their position became desperate. By 26 May there was no longer a cohesive defence of the town, rather pockets of men were still fighting. Determined young officers and the remnants of their men fought on, some even attempting to counterattack the enemy, until their ammunition was exhausted. Extraordinary acts of heroism were performed by men whose actions were never rewarded since there were no witnesses to report their deeds. Stretcher-bearers defied machine-gun fire to run out into the open to rescue the wounded. In desperate hand-to-hand encounters, the defenders used fixed bayonets to prevent the enemy overrunning their positions. Throughout the shrinking perimeter, machine-guns were fired to the very last round, mortars fired until they were out of ammunition – and then it was hopeless. With the bastion surrounded there was no point in fighting on. Any further resistance would only endanger the wounded men sheltering underground. And so with a heavy heart, the British commander, Brigadier Nicholson, finally surrendered Calais.
At the end of the four-day battle, Bob Davies found himself walking about in a dream:About six of us went down to a boat and rowed across to this flat, marshy area that went out to the sea. We just headed for the sea. I don’t know why, I suppose we thought that was the direction of home. We found an old cargo boat washed up on the beach. We thought there might be food on it, so we climbed up on to the deck. There were the dead bodies of the crew everywhere. We searched everywhere – through the cabins and the wheelhouse – looking for food. It was a real mess. Then all of a sudden we heard a yell, turned and saw a Jerry at the top of the ladder.
Then Davies heard the words dreaded by soldiers: ‘For you the war is over.’ Looking over the side of the boat, they could see a tank with its gun pointed towards them. Worried they might be shot, Davies and his comrades descended to the beach. They were immediately marched to a field where they gathered with other survivors of the battle. There was little chance to think about what was happening, as Davies admitted: ‘I don’t know what my feelings were. Everything had happened so quick. One day we were tucked away in a hop farm in Kent, then we were in Calais with no hope of getting home again. But it didn’t sink in. Maybe if we’d been older and more worldly wise we would have understood it better. It was like a dream gone wrong.’
The sense of utter mental confusion suffered by Davies was also illustrated by the experience of another man captured on the same beach. Vernon Mathias, like Bob Davies, a London shopworker, was shot in the arm while patrolling the sand dunes outside Calais. Weak and confused from the loss of blood, blacking out as he walked, with his fingers numb where the tourniquet was cutting off circulation, Mathias headed for the same boat that had run aground. As he approached the boat he asked a man he assumed to be a Belgian soldier if he had any food. The man nodded and passed him a tin of blood sausage. Then Mathias spotted a group of his comrades and approached them. One called to him: ‘Hello Taff. How does it feel to be a prisoner of war?’ Only then did he realize the Belgian soldier had in fact been a German.
Around 60 per cent of the defenders of Calais were killed or wounded in the course of the four days’ fighting. Approximately 500 wounded men were left in the cellars of the citadel. As the exhausted defenders began the long march into captivity, they surveyed the scene. The blackened wrecks of army trucks and civilian vehicles of all descriptions littered the streets. The hulks of tanks sat amid the ruins, abandoned in the
For four days the defenders hung on. Short of food, water and, above all, ammunition, their position became desperate. By 26 May there was no longer a cohesive defence of the town, rather pockets of men were still fighting. Determined young officers and the remnants of their men fought on, some even attempting to counterattack the enemy, until their ammunition was exhausted. Extraordinary acts of heroism were performed by men whose actions were never rewarded since there were no witnesses to report their deeds. Stretcher-bearers defied machine-gun fire to run out into the open to rescue the wounded. In desperate hand-to-hand encounters, the defenders used fixed bayonets to prevent the enemy overrunning their positions. Throughout the shrinking perimeter, machine-guns were fired to the very last round, mortars fired until they were out of ammunition – and then it was hopeless. With the bastion surrounded there was no point in fighting on. Any further resistance would only endanger the wounded men sheltering underground. And so with a heavy heart, the British commander, Brigadier Nicholson, finally surrendered Calais.
At the end of the four-day battle, Bob Davies found himself walking about in a dream:About six of us went down to a boat and rowed across to this flat, marshy area that went out to the sea. We just headed for the sea. I don’t know why, I suppose we thought that was the direction of home. We found an old cargo boat washed up on the beach. We thought there might be food on it, so we climbed up on to the deck. There were the dead bodies of the crew everywhere. We searched everywhere – through the cabins and the wheelhouse – looking for food. It was a real mess. Then all of a sudden we heard a yell, turned and saw a Jerry at the top of the ladder.
Then Davies heard the words dreaded by soldiers: ‘For you the war is over.’ Looking over the side of the boat, they could see a tank with its gun pointed towards them. Worried they might be shot, Davies and his comrades descended to the beach. They were immediately marched to a field where they gathered with other survivors of the battle. There was little chance to think about what was happening, as Davies admitted: ‘I don’t know what my feelings were. Everything had happened so quick. One day we were tucked away in a hop farm in Kent, then we were in Calais with no hope of getting home again. But it didn’t sink in. Maybe if we’d been older and more worldly wise we would have understood it better. It was like a dream gone wrong.’
The sense of utter mental confusion suffered by Davies was also illustrated by the experience of another man captured on the same beach. Vernon Mathias, like Bob Davies, a London shopworker, was shot in the arm while patrolling the sand dunes outside Calais. Weak and confused from the loss of blood, blacking out as he walked, with his fingers numb where the tourniquet was cutting off circulation, Mathias headed for the same boat that had run aground. As he approached the boat he asked a man he assumed to be a Belgian soldier if he had any food. The man nodded and passed him a tin of blood sausage. Then Mathias spotted a group of his comrades and approached them. One called to him: ‘Hello Taff. How does it feel to be a prisoner of war?’ Only then did he realize the Belgian soldier had in fact been a German.
Around 60 per cent of the defenders of Calais were killed or wounded in the course of the four days’ fighting. Approximately 500 wounded men were left in the cellars of the citadel. As the exhausted defenders began the long march into captivity, they surveyed the scene. The blackened wrecks of army trucks and civilian vehicles of all descriptions littered the streets. The hulks of tanks sat amid the ruins, abandoned in the
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