Escape from St-Valery-en-Caux (eBook)

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The Phoney War: October 1939–May 1940

The 1st Bn The Black Watch had crossed to France with the 4th Division early in October 1939, and in due course reached its area near Lens, where it remained for 2 months.

Bradford’s brief diary entry of the journey was economical in detail. His letter said a little more but in truth the journey had been frightful. In peacetime their ship, RMS Mona’s Queen, 2,756 tons, carried trippers to the Isle of Man. For the crossing from Southampton to Cherbourg, on the night of 5/6 October, she carried 1,940 soldiers in such a small space that a large number of men had to stand up all the rough night. Many were very sea-sick on the journey. Bradford managed to survive the crossing without succumbing but, the moment he set foot on land, was sick at the feet of his Commanding Officer to the great amusement of others.

On arrival in France there was little organisation or even provision of food. The battalion had brought, against orders, cookers, rations, blankets and ammunition and the first of these came into immediate use. Late in the evening on 6 October they entrained and made an overnight journey to Noyen-sur-Sarthe, near Le Mans. From there a 10-mile route-march took them to billets in Parcé-sur-Sarthe where the villagers were most welcoming. Col Stephen reported: ‘One of the officers went so far as to sing the Marseillaise at a small dinner party. This did not go quite with the bang intended as the inhabitants of Parcé were Royalists.’

To overcome strict censorship Bradford had arranged a simple method of communication with his father. The phrase ‘I am not allowed to say where I am’ was the sign that he was going to tell them exactly where he was! In the next two sentences, if one knows what to look for, can clearly be read ‘Parce near Le Mans’ [see underlined letters]. While not necessarily included in the extracts used in this book, several of Bradford’s letters contain similar hidden messages and there is no doubt his parents were able to trace his moves. Later on, this simple mechanism was to prove rather more useful.

On 9 October an advance party left by road for the Belgian border while the rest of the men, after a route-march in which all got soaked, entrained at Noyen and after a 23-hour journey arrived at Henin-Leitard and marched to billets throughout the town. Stephen noted: ‘It was difficult to believe that a town could exist with such a lack of sanitation.’ 14

Section of letter of 10 October 1939 containing a concealed message. I am not allowed to say where I am is the signal that the message is concealed. The dots under the ‘p’ of ‘simply’ and the ‘s’ of ‘so’ indicate the beginning and end of the message. The writing has been heavily inked with the exception of the relevant letters conveying the message – see the black dots over the letters in the lower version.

No preparations seemed to have been put in place for any military advance and, as Stephen recorded, ‘apart from a certain amount of excitement among the civilian population at the arrival of British troops, with the obvious hope of making a bit of money, all was peace and quiet.’

The French border with Belgium was largely undefended which was a considerable contrast to the heavily defended Maginot Line covering the Franco-German border to the east. On 15 October they began, in heavy rain, to prepare defensive positions on the canal to the north of Dourges. The first day’s work collapsed owing to lack of revetting material. Officers cut trees in the vicinity for that purpose but this was promptly made a court-martial offence by the French. One Guards officer bought a whole plantation and, when the French authorities tried to stop him, was able to see them off by advising that the wood was his and he could do with it what he liked. Stephen records, ‘such was the conduct of war in 1939’.15

Some requests for items from home were rather prescient:

The battalion was put to work constructing defences over a distance of 3,000 yards on the canal-bank between Beauvin and La Bassée. This was a large task for one battalion, especially when they had to send one company daily to Attiches to construct an Anti-Tank obstacle around a château in which some of the few British tanks were parked. Stephen reported, ‘it is understood that the obstacle was so complete that some of the tanks never succeeded in getting out’. Clearly the command organisation was lacking in direction.

One new duty which the officers had to carry out was the censoring of letters. Noel Jardine-Paterson noted: ‘It was unbelievable how many letters the men wrote and usually 1½ to 2 hours a day had to be spent in doing this. It was not a nice job having to read the letters through and sign them at the bottom and on the envelope but we got used to it in time.’16

At home Bradford’s parents were battening down for the war. Clearly they’d hoarded some petrol and were having to revise their domestic arrangements as staff were called-up:

While the battalion did not move during this time there seemed to be frequent changes in the billeting arrangements:

But it was not to be:

Although ‘at war’ the quest for social life amongst at least the younger officers did not cease altogether. Jardine-Paterson reported:

Bradford’s letters are obviously sketchy in their detail about military activities but it is clear that preparations for war are ongoing.

The 2in mortar was, in theory, issued to all infantry platoons but often there were too few and there was little or no ammunition available for training. This letter shows that front line regular infantry had, until November 1939, not fired these weapons in practice. It turned out that only smoke ammunition could be used as...