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| British troops await evacuation from Dunkirk Beach, June 1940 |
GUEST BLOG / By John Fisher, Life Magazine War
Correspondent--Our party was whipped
into shape with German precision and we set out from Cologne in seven
high-powered Mercedes-Benz staff cars. Along the road to Aachen I saw kids
playing soldiers with tin-pipe cannons and little helmets, emulating their
fathers at the front.
At Maastricht we crossed the
Meuse. The Belgians had blown up the bridges but the German pioniere [sappers]
had slapped up two new iron bridges within 24 hours. Here posters forbade
citizens outside their homes after 10 p.m. lest they be shot by patrols.
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The June 24, 1940 edition of Life
Magazine
had Italian Chief Army Marshal
Rodolfo Graziani on the cover.
On June
10, 1940 Italy declares war
on France but by June 20,
Italy and France signed a peace treaty,
which
became moot as France
fell to the Germans within hours thereafter.
Along the Meuse Valley we
passed long lines of refugees plodding back to their homes after the vain
flight, dodging German Army trucks which drove at top speed along the narrow
road. In Liege bread was being rationed though food seemed sufficient. We were
told to stock up as we were entering an area where food was scarce. On the road
to Namur signs of heavy fighting increased. Mine traps, still charged, forced
us off the highway. In Namur almost all houses in the northern section of town
had been hit or shelled, bridges blown up and guts of houses scattered in the streets.
Stores were open with their fronts blown out.
This war was fought along the
roads. Messerschmitts swept low across the center of a road, machine-gunning
Allied truck columns, but bombs were not dropped on the roads. For miles south
of Namur I could see holes on either side of the road, about 150 ft. apart,
where bombs had been dropped soas to scatter shrapnel over the road surface
without tearing up the road itself.
German officers informed us:
"We would be foolish to demolish the roads since roadside bombings are
just as efficient." Unfortunately for the Belgians, they build marvelous
roads for the German mechanized army which could speed along unhindered at 30
or 40 miles an hour.
I was amazed to see so few
soldiers' graves along the roadside. Only here and there did a cross topped by
a steel helmet mark the spot where a man fell. The Germans bury their dead
within one hour. This is done to prevent an epidemic and to spare the soldiers
the sight of their dead comrades.
Late in the afternoon we drove
through the Maginot Line, marked by huge street barricades, barbed wire, deep
lines of bunkers strong enough to resist 6-in. shelling. Bunkers were shoved
out far ahead of the main fortification, which centered about Maubeuge.
The Germans concentrated
strong tank and mechanized infantry forces upon this fortress, shelling and
bombing the town itself for three days. On the last day 15 Stukas in 15 minutes
gave it the death blow. Inside the town gates I saw with what efficiency
Maubeuge had been shelled and bombed, precisely and systematically reducing the
homes of 25,000 inhabitants to a heap of rubbish. Yet not one single street was
hit or damaged except for refuse which was easily removable. Two old women
salvaging bits of furniture from their little shack told me that some 50
civilians had been killed by a shell dropping on the church. Their bewildered
expressions and wild
gesticulations told
adequately of the terrorizing effect of Stuka attacks, with whistling and
howling bombs smashing everything within reach. The air was filled with the
stench of dead, which German officers called the "perfume of battle."
At Carillon we happened upon
15,000 French and British prisoners taken at La Bassee on May 28. Among them
was a platoon of Lancasters, its leader reporting 25% casualties. He said an
attack of 300 tanks in combination with heavy trench mortars got them. He said:
"It was the fault of our staff in
getting orders jumbled. The
correct order in the right place would have got us out of that hole." They
had been marching for three days in the scorching sun with little food and
water, since they had been caught fighting without their complete packs.
Frenchmen, he said, had been
taken with full equipment including tents.
He further said: "I
never saw our own Air Force during all that time." He claimed that for
three days straight he never fired a single artillery shot and that when the
opportunity arose to lambaste the German tanks a French officer forbade firing,
mistrusting the British ability to fire over the French
infantry. I asked him about
the German Army. He answered:
"It looks pretty
wonderful and has us absolutely bamboozled.
We were no match for it. I'd
like to tell this to some officials
back home." Grabbing an
ax handle tightly and shaking it
unmistakably, he said:
"Politicians muffed the works!" The Englishmen's spirits still seemed
full of go and ready to fight. "Let me at them again," said the
platoon sergeant. But the whole vast camp was a depressing sight. Men were begging
for cigarets and asking for bread, since they got only one
loaf for four men. They stood
along a small river bank washing and shaving or clustered around small wood
fires warming up what bits of canned food they had.
We passed through Arras,
finding the railway station and the center of town destroyed, and sped on
toward the coast at Boulogne. Along the road I saw hundreds of neatly stacked piles
of 6-in. Allied shells. Columns of British trucks, now repainted, were carrying
German supplies. In between them
were motorcycle units with
mounted machine guns, a field kitchen cooking on the run or trucks loaded with
infantry magnificent strapping fellows, with the look of conquerors.
Considering the 40 mph clip
at which the German columns move, I was amazed at the small number of wrecked
trucks. When I asked an officer "How come?" he looked surprised and
said: "It is verboten to have collisions."
At Boulogne the docks were
smashed to bits, warehouses burned to the ground and all around were great
piles of Allied war materiel. In the harbor I saw hundreds of wine barrels that
the French troops apparently always carry with them.
We passed on up the coast
through Calais and St.-Omer to Cassel, a hilltop town bristling with guns and
jammed with trucks. Anti-aircraft: guns, armored cars, equipment, wine bottles,
canned food were lying about in heaps and piles. So well equipped were the
British forces that even football shoes, dart-boards and other games were
scattered among the
rubbish.
Shortly before Bergues, last
strong Dunkerque fortification, we had to leave our cars. Picking our way
through a swamp, we stopped to watch German Stukas trying to force their way through
a barrage of French anti-aircraft fire. We could see the shells exploding close
to their tails with little white puffs of smoke but never hitting them.
Along railroad tracks,
through a mine-infested wood, weentered Bergucs in single file. Trucks, tanks,
vehicles of all kinds had been hastily pushed together in a futile effort to barricade
the road. The town gate was blocked by a huge American caterpillar snow plow,
behind which a French
machine-gunner had left an
unfinished meal. I squeezed past
and entered a scene of
complete ruin.
For four days German Stukas
and artillery had rained a shower of steel upon the town leaving no house
untouched. Flames were still licking their way among the debris, while charred
wood and burning cloth filled the air with stifling smoke. One church had
remained untouched while another had its tower completely demolished. German
shells were whistling overhead. And underneath these sounds I could hear the
rapid staccato bark of German machine guns, answered by the slower tak tak of French
gunners.
To the north we could sec the
billowing smoke clouds of burning Dunkerque. As we walked through the streets I
noticed people here and
there creeping out of their
cellars. Two thousand had remained through the six-day bombardment. A French
tank car exploded while nearby horses leisurely grazed stray bits of grass
surrounding a World War monument.
Swallows were flying about
the empty street looking for their homes. The
war had swept across Bergues
and in its wake left nothing but ruins. While the German advance was breaking
French resistance barely a mile to the north, soldiers here were already emptying
French, warehouses. Cigarets, chocolate, millions of rounds of munitions and
food supplies fix six months were their booty.
Allied trucks and motorbikes
already were doing their bit for the German Army. Again I saw a litter of
abandoned materiel, ping-pong sets and golf clubs among it.
We left Bergues, since the
Germans were still pouring shells into Dunkerque, and started down towards
Lille, passing an ancient fort which surrendered to a single German tank when the
tank appeared in its courtyard. The outskirts of Lille were completely
shattered and in ruins, while the center of the town remained intact. The
stench of dead horses, some in
harness in front of carts,
filled the air. Near Ath we passed thousands of French prisoners behind
barbed-wire fences, guarded by one German soldier.
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| Nazi infantry march into Antwerp, Belgium, June 1940 |
Late at night we came into
Brussels, undamaged except for blown-up bridges and radio station. Sidewalk
cafes were doing a booming business as German soldiers tasted good coffee. Food
was excellent, trolleys and buses were still running. But German soldiers and
foreign correspondents
seemed to be getting a corner
on the American cigaret supplies, which are getting scarcer every day.
Bread has already been
rationed but the people of Brussels are not complaining. Although they do not
like the Germans commanding
the streets, they admit that
the conquerors treat them with consideration. They say this is far better than
1918. I noticed that a lot of young Germans already had Belgian girl friends.
Regarding the capitulation of the Belgian Army, Belgians confide: "To what
our King has done our hearts say no but our minds say yes."
Next morning we headed north
again and that evening I slept in the hotel at Ostend where the Belgian
Government had stopped briefly. A small card on a door said: "Bureau of the
Foreign Minister" and beneath was written "Pierlot."
We started back down the
Channel coast toward Dunkerque, passing ever-longer returning German supply
trains, which told us that the battle of Dunkerque was almost over.
We drove along the Moeres
Canal, filled with burning barges, and passed a field where hundreds of Allied
trucks stretched in lines as far as the eye could see. Equipment, supplies,
coats, helmets were lying about in heaps and mounds-an immense booty for the
Germans. The attack upon Dunkerque was mainly carried by infantry and
artillery, not tanks, as retreating French had flooded the area by opening the
sluices of the Moeres Canal.
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| Nazi Junkers JU 87B-2 dive bomber, 1940 |
German infantry, I was told,
had to advance through water up to their necks. I saw many of them wearing Allied
khaki uniforms until their own were dry again. Before us lay Dunkerque resting
at last after seven solid
days of the most terrific
bombardment by artillery and planes.
A few hours after the 40,000
French defenders gave up, I entered this last foothold of the Allied army in
Flanders. The city was a pile of
rubbish. Every building was destroyed, not a wall intact. Bricks and stones,
many feet deep, jammed the streets. Flames were still crackling and smoke
swirled through the town as fires spread unchecked. I stumbled through the smoke
over twisted iron girders, dodged hanging wires still red hot, jumped across
pools of molten tin and piles of glass, walked over boulders weighing hundreds
of pounds. I saw a drunk who had blotted out his mind, perhaps to escape the terror
of Stuka bombs. I saw a woman completely crazed running to the balcony of her
shattered house, shouting an indistinguishable name over and over. I saw men
and women with tears running down their dusty faces.
But, despite the fact that
the town had surrendered only a short time previously, refugees already were
returning and people who had remained in their cellars were wandering dazedly
about the streets.
Andre Nod, Assistant Police
Commissar of Dunkerque, had lived with his wife in a cellar for two weeks.
Oddly enough Nod, onetime German subject, had served in the German Army during
the World War in the same regiment of the staff officer leading our party. When
the officer said, "Now you
can report back for
duty," Nod replied unhesitatingly: "I am still a Frenchman after
all."
At Dunkerque harbor Frenchmen
lay where they fell, their bodies bloated, legs and arms blown off, guts hanging
out. Sprawled in groups, they fell behind their machine guns, the gunner still
holding the trigger. The horrid stench of the dead was overpoweringly
nauseating. Rows of British trucks unable to be loaded aboard ship stood burned
on a dock. Piles of
bullets and munitions filled
the path. At one of the smoldering docks a French tanker named Salome caught
fire, its smoke choking us within a few minutes. Distant oil tanks exploded,
throwing flames 100 ft. into the air.
One could feel the air filled
with plagues so we hastened to get away.
Outside of Dunkerque long
columns of German soldiers were marching southward. "The war is over up
here," said a young infantryman to me. "We are now looking for new
battlefields." Some 3,000 French cavalry horses wandered aimlessly in
fields along the Moeres Canal, unheedful of
their dead comrades that lay
about the meadows with broken backs and shell-torn bodies. Many more were
floating in the Canal. I saw horses standing in water up to their bellies, undecided
what to do. The Canal waters were rising constantly as we drove over flooded
roads, heading back toward Berlin.—Published
in Life Magazine, June 24, 1940
Source: Library of America via the
public domain.
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