My War in Two Armies: Part 1 of 10 - Service in the French Army

During the early part of the war, Mother (aged 62), my sisters Barbara (37) and
Ann (18) and I (26) lived together at 112 Edith Road, West Kensington. My brother Jean (21) had been called-up to the British Army in September 1939 and was training with his regiment, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, at its depot at Winchester. We at home carried on our normal occupations: Barbara at Walpole’s of Bond Street, and I at the London offices in Piccadilly of the French National Railways.

Having dual British and French nationality, I was expecting to be called up first to the French Army, since my age group had not yet been reached at that time by the British national service call-up and all age groups were being mobilised in France. My turn came in 1940 and I received from the French Consulate General in London my military call-up papers with instructions to report to Depot 81 at Dijon on 10th February, for military service in the French Army.

I left London early in the morning of 9th February. Ann and Jean came to see me off at Victoria Station. I travelled via Folkestone and Calais and arrived in Paris the same evening. The next morning I left Paris and arrived at Dijon about mid-day. After having lunch in a restaurant near the station, I found my way to the Caserne Heudelet, which was Depot 81 of the 27th Infantry Regiment. The large depot buildings were situated on the outskirts of the town.

Six days after settling down to this new life, I was given a medical examination (visite d’incorporation) with a number of other new recruits, and a few days later was drafted into an infantry company which was undergoing training. A few weeks after my arrival in Dijon, I made an application through my commanding officer for a transfer into the Corps of Interpreters with either a French or British unit. However, in spite of several reminders, I received no further news, and decided to abandon the matter for the present. No doubt that other opportunities would soon present themselves to improve my position.

Some weeks later, on my return to Dijon from 48 hours’ leave, which I spent with my uncle Pierre and his wife Madeleine at Thomery near Fontainebleau, I developed some gastric trouble and reported sick. I was taken to a military hospital in Dijon (Hôpital Vaillant) with a high temperature and remained there for over a month. On returning to my depot on 15th May I was posted to another company, as my previous one had left to take up positions in one of the forts in the neighbouring countryside.

Since the beginning of the German invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg on the 10th May 1940, events were moving fast and the long-awaited real war was quickly developing into a serious crisis. Refugees were beginning to arrive in Dijon from the north, and reception centres were quickly organised to feed and accommodate the constant flow of people arriving in packed cars.

The following few days saw great activity inside the depot; strict orders were given that no one except officers were allowed outside the barracks if not on duty. News from the front was bad and rumours were spreading that German fifth columnists had been seen and caught. Patrol parties were sent to deal with any parachutists who were said to have dropped by the occasional German aircraft which were heard during the night.

Reports reaching us of the situation in the north were confused and the spreading of rumours, most of which exaggerated the speed of the German drive to the south, was causing concern to the colonel of the depot. A special meeting of NCOs was called; our colonel lectured them on the need for stern discipline in the present emergency and he gave orders to place under arrest any one spreading rumours or with a defeatist attitude. Before the end of May, while I was still at the depot, four lorries and two light tanks arrived one evening. The vehicles were pierced with bullet holes and their drivers told us how they had managed to escape encirclement by the enemy and that they were all that was left of our regiment which had been in action in the north of France.

It was not until the 4th June that I finally left the depot with my company; we were taken to a transit depot, also in Dijon, where we were issued with new equipment and stores. Other troops arrived and a new battalion was formed for incorporation into the 212iême Régiment Régional d’Infanterie, for the defence of the Paris region.

The battalion left Dijon by train on 7th June and included six light lorries and an ambulance, together with a field kitchen, stores and ammunition. We arrived the same evening at Vincennes and after the unloading was complete we marched to our final destination, Montreuil-sous-Bois, an eastern suburb of Paris. We billeted in a disused factory close to some open ground and a small park. We stayed five days at Montreuil during which time we were given further military instructions and kept on the alert. For the first time we were issued with ammunition and took up defensive positions on the higher ground overlooking some crossroads, which we had to cover with our machine guns and rifles should the enemy appear. No one was allowed outside the camp and everything was ready to engage any German advance units. We knew practically nothing of the military situation but rumours were still being spread that German parachutists were being dropped near Paris and the increasing sound of aircraft at night seemed to confirm that. Heavy black smoke from burning petrol dumps obscured the sky for one entire day and we felt that it would not be long before action would start for us.

As far as I could make out our company and in fact the whole of the battalion was made up of men of various age groups mustered from various depots: reservists, territorials and new recruits, many of whom had had very little training. There were however a number of men returned from the front including a couple of Foreign Legionnaires. As time went on and nothing happened there was a feeling of tension; we had not seen any civilians and all was very quiet. During our last two days at Montreuil, I developed bronchitis and had a high temperature; I spent one day in a small infirmary improvised in the old factory with two other sick men.

News reaching us of the German advance had got much worse. They were very close to Paris and we were told that the capital had been declared an open city. We were not surprised therefore that early in the morning of the 13th June our battalion moved off from Montreuil for an undisclosed destination in the south, but passing through Vincennes. I was still not well enough to march with the rest and was given a lift in the ambulance with my two sick companions.

Once in the town of Montreuil we saw the full extent of the upheaval which the war had brought to France. Normal life was completely upset, and as we moved along the road leading out of the town we were shocked at the transformation which the deteriorating position had caused. Everywhere crowds of refugees were on the move; some in cars, lorries and on bicycles, but most on foot taking with them only what they were able to transport in clothing and bedding. More people were watching from their houses probably uncertain whether they should join the exodus or remain and hope for the best when the Germans arrived. There was no further doubt that nothing could be done to stop the progress of the invaders since the army was moving south with the civilians. It was a difficult decision for the people watching on their doorsteps, but those who remained at home were in the end more fortunate than the millions who took to the road, abandoning their possessions to the bands of looters who followed the crowds.

Our battalion marched in good order and in the same direction as that taken by the refugees. Later that evening we arrived at the village of Hay-les-Roses where we rested for a few hours in the local school. At one o’clock in the morning we were on the road again and the march continued for the following two days and nights with intervals for sleep and food. Refugees were still to be seen everywhere, most of them looking very tired and strained with anxiety. Every kind of vehicle was being used including farm carts and even wheelbarrows. A few hours after we had left Hay-les-Roses, my two companions and I in the ambulance got out and walked, so that others worse off than us by fatigue could get a lift. I was lucky as I had very little to carry; all my equipment including my rifle had been loaded into one of our trucks.

On the 16th June, after having marched all night and the previous day, passing through Fleury, near Corbeil, and part of the Forest of Fontainebleau, we arrived in a village close to the town of Pithiviers. Many stragglers, unable to keep up with the main body of the battalion, were never seen again and must have been taken prisoner by the closely following Germans.

We stopped about a mile from the village close to a farm named Aubusson and chose a favourable position in a small wood to park our vehicles and rest awhile. Sentries were positioned on the verge of the spinney to provide warning to what was left of our battalion. We barely had time to settle down when someone came running from under the cover shouting that German motorcyclists were approaching down a lane on the other side of the woods. Almost at once firing broke out in that direction. Fortunately for us one of our machine gun posts had been on the alert and after a short exchange of fire with the Germans our men succeeded in destroying the German reconnaissance unit, consisting of six men on motorcycles and sidecars. Five of the Germans were killed and one was taken prisoner. One of our officers, Capitaine Dupuy, was wounded in the leg, one man killed, and another wounded. According to the young German prisoner, who was interrogated by our officers, his unit was ordered to inform us that we were surrounded, that we were to surrender ourselves and proceed to the town of Melun (some distance to the north of our present position) where we would be taken prisoners.

Soon after this encounter we were assembled and told to abandon all our arms and equipment. We still had our six lorries and it was decided to use the small ambulance to take our two casualties and the German prisoner in the direction from which the Germans were approaching. These could in fact be seen in the distance in the form of armoured cars and tanks. There was very little time for us remaining in the wood if we were to try to escape from the enemy’s encircling movement.

By now, a large proportion of our original unit had disappeared. It was obvious that the war had reached a stage when all organised resistance had come to an end and it was a matter of mopping up operations by the Germans north of the River Loire. All the equipment we had, including arms, ammunition, stores, clothing and field kitchens had to be abandoned. What was left of our battalion crowded into the six lorries and headed off at high speed in the direction of the Loire, hoping to reach it before the Germans. It was thought at the time that the bridges might have been destroyed, either by bombing or blown up by the French Army. Some of the villages we passed through were completely deserted by the fleeing population. Animals and cattle were roaming the empty roads and fields. The drivers had to proceed at great care, and we inside the lorries kept as quiet as possible, as we had been warned by local people that we were passing through territory already in German hands.

By late evening we reached the town of Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, having avoided capture. Here we found the main road congested by a long column of refugees as we made our way through the crowded town on the River Loire towards the bridge. We soon discovered the cause of the chaos; much of the town was in flames and the recent bombing had caught the endless streams of refugees and soldiers trying to cross the bridge. The human casualties had already been removed but the road was strewn with debris, dead horses and smouldering carts. The long narrow suspension bridge stretching across the wide shallow river had not yet been destroyed, though we were told later that it was blown up by French sappers soon after our small convoy had got across; this information came from one of our stragglers who had waded and swam across and finally caught up with us. While crossing the bridge we noticed that the next town on the river, Sully-sur-Loire, where there was a bridge, was also in flames.

Having got safely across the Loire, we continued on our way south for a few miles and at nightfall we stopped and camped for the night in the grounds of a château. We had our first opportunity to sleep after three days and nights of almost continuous travel. It was incidentally on the 17th June 1940 that the new French government, represented by Marchal Pétain, signed an armistice with the Germans, but this news did not reach us until a week later.

The days that followed seemed much the same, except that the Germans had given up the chase and appeared to have halted at the River Loire; our general direction was south-west, towards Bordeaux. A number of our men, who had lost their way before we crossed the Loire, had now caught up with us, and this made it impossible for us all to fit into our six lorries. Orders were then given for 10 kilometres to be covered on foot and 10 by lorry for the rest of the journey south. At the end of the day we would camp in woods, and fortunately the weather was good throughout our retreat. The food however had to be rationed out and consisted mainly of tins of corned beef and biscuits.

Our itinerary took us through the départements of Loiret, Loire-et-Cher, Cher, Indre, Vienne, Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne.

On 24th June, the day on which the armistice was signed with Italy, we arrived at Bergerac, where for the first time we were able to obtain some bread from local shops. The same evening we arrived at the town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot and it was here that we first heard the news that the war had ended so far as France was concerned. We camped on the outskirts of Villeneuve and remained there for the following two days; we needed the rest and our rations had improved somewhat.

The next move was on 27th June, leaving Villeneuve for our final destination 9 miles to the west: Sainte-Livrade, a picturesque village situated on the banks of the River Lot, a tributary of the Garonne. Out of the battalion that had left Paris two weeks earlier, only 200 arrived. The remainder had presumably been taken prisoner. Some no doubt may have escaped in the confusion by swapping their uniform for civilian clothes. Three companies camped in two farms at Sainte-Livrade, the rest was garrisoned at Port-Ste-Marie a few miles away, where battalion headquarters was situated. We stayed three weeks at Sainte-Livrade, and when off-duty fishing in the River Lot was a favourite pastime. The enforced rest gave us a chance to recuperate after the hectic past weeks and to get up to date with the news.

The situation in the south of France was chaotic but the military and local authorities did what they could to control the millions of refugees. The German army did not pursue its advance beyond the River Loire, but the unoccupied south of France came under its authority in political and administrative affairs.

While at Sainte-Livrade I wrote several letters home (some of which actually reached England), the first time since the Dijon days. We also heard General de Gaulle’s first appeal to Frenchmen on the wireless from the BBC.

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