Dunkirk Operation Dynamo Evacuation Beaches

Thanks Keith , lent my book out and must get it back.
Sounds like it might tie in with with the moniker 156LAA52RA ?
Craig

 

2nd and 3rd photo just bought, 1st and 3rd photo of block ships, think 2nd photo might be at Dunkirk but need ID of it.
Keith

 

Can't remember the name of the destroyer right now but one was sinking after being bombed on the Mole and towed away before she sunk. If I remember righly she burned for 12/24hrs and then blew up in the harbour area away from the Mole. I think this may be her.

 

Could it be this ship ? Does not look like the westside outer harbour but I could be wrong.
HMS Grenade was hit by two bombs which set her afire and killed 14 sailors and mortally wounded another four men. The ship was cast off from her berth, in case she sank there, and then drifted into the harbour channel. The trawler John Cattling towed Grenade over to the west side of the outer harbour where her magazines exploded later that evening.
Keith

 

That's the one I was thinking of. I could see if the locals on my page would know if you like?

 

Thanks Drew, that would be good.

 

There's a few navy types on there that can tell a ship by the smallest detail too. I think they could be the same looking at them.

 

On all these old photos, the Germans mostly appear very cocky and cheerfully upbeat, as well they might in the circumstances of the time; they thought they had achieved a victory. It would be interesting to know what happened to many of these chaps eventually, where else they fought and if they survived the war. As an aside, at Christmas 1945 local folk in the little town wherein I dwell, were tactfully asked whether they would entertain to tea a German PW from the local camp. My dad, a Dunkirk survivor agreed and, in fact, we had two men for tea. I recall one who spoke good English with a dry sense of humour, saying he was at Dunkirk and probably waved goodbye to my dad! Before the war ended, my mother worked at a local brewery in the bottling plant. Every morning a small party of German PWs under the supervision of an escorting British Sergeant was trucked to work in the brewery. One morning, evidently one of the PWs cheeked the Sergeant who reacted by thumping him. The victim was quite popular with the ladies and they asserted to the foreman that if that particular Sergeant was seen on the camp again, they would walk out! They got their wish; only in England could this happen in wartime!

 

That brewery incident is interesting, jetson. One can understand (but not condone) those women in occupied countries(*) getting ‘friendly’ with their nations’ conquerors; and in turn German women with soldiers of the Allied occupation forces. There is a well known picture of a Dutch woman volunteering to go into captivity with her Heer soldat husband (although one can reasonably speculate that it was as much for self-preservation as love, collaborators being roughly treated after their countries’ liberation).

But here you describe women exhibiting loyalty to a defeated enemy where there is no obvious advantage to be obtained. ‘O! the treachery and the fickleness of women are rightly matched’ (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels, translated from the German of Goethe by Thomas Carlyle; in two volumes, vol.1. 1824. 145).

(* Including our Channel Islands. Women there deemed too-friendly with the German occupiers were known as ‘jerrybags’ by the more loyal islanders, and after Liberation many were treated harshly—tarred and feathered, etc.

Bunting, Madeleine. The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, 1940–1945. London: HarperCollins, 1995. 259,260.)

 

Some of the local German PWs worked under supervision as labourers in a local factory during the war. At Christmas time, they would produce ingenious wooden toys to trade, mainly I think cigarettes, for local children. An elderly lady we knew of, had "bought" one of these and was so pleased as a gesture of thanks, she made the prisoners at the factory a cake using some of her rations. Just after the war a PW was repatriated early back to Germany as a reward for his help in attempting to rescue crew members from a Lancaster bomber which crashed in the field where he was working as a member of a group of farm workers. I briefly worked as a farm worker with an ex local PW, he was an assiduous worker, settled locally and married a village girl. Eventually he became a sub postmaster and shop owner. Curiously he only returned to Germany with his wife after his retirement.

 

Jetson, which county was this please?

Stranger Here Myself Thank you for the references.

 

This is a decent close-up of the water-lighter 'Claude' - towed over with drinking water and abandoned on the beach at Lefrincoucke where it remained and is visible to this day.

 

Whereabouts is this today Rich?

 

Leffrinckoucke apparently.

Battledetective Battle Relic

 

Interesting. Any idea where she is in relation to the Crested Eagle and Devonia? I wasn't aware of this one. I was always under the impression the rest were pre or post war wrecks, not from Dynamo.

 

Unless I've missed it (quite possible as I haven't re-read the whole thread) - this is an unusual aerial view of the lorry pier close to Malo Terminus, with presumably good old Ethel Everard completing the scene.

 

Only just caught up with your post Osborne 2. The county was Lincolnshire and the German PW would be from Stamford Empingham Road camp.

 

Am I correct in saying that despite the many many British vehicles abandoned at Dunkirk during the evacuation, there were no British buses there at all? In the extensive collection of images here, I can only see French and Belgian buses. I assume the BEF did not utilise British buses?

May I just take this opportunity to applaud the members of this group for being able to produce so many amazing photos - some of which are horrifying but which tell the story of Dunkirk, its' survivors and those who perished. RIP.

 

Photo of a British bus used by the BEF. from my collection.
I will try to find more photos.
Keith

 

Well, that's my theory blown out of the water then! Looks like a possible ex LT vehicle.