And no it wasn't a Royal Engineer Unit The last men still still in France as a unit in their own right and offering resistance to the Germans in 1940 is claimed by Major Nightingale and his 50 AMPC reservists of 1 Company, No.10 Docks Labour Company. At Cherbourg and armed with only .303 rifles and just one Bren gun, which apparently no one was trained on and didn't know how to use. These men manned the final perimeter at Cherbourg until the rest of the troops had left. They arrived in France on 10th September 1939 with very little in the way of equipment-they didn't even have any cooking utensils! They finally left for England on the 18th June - proudly claiming that they were the 'First in and the last out'. Major Nightingale later said, 'It wasn't a glorious affair, but the Pioneers could at least be proud of their part in it'. Royal Pioneer Corps Museum Archives
