Calais 1940

The Calais 1940 scratch party

The previous was: "Battles at Narvik"

During the anxious days at the beginning of World War II when the Germans were invading the Continental Countries. The Royal Marines were called upon to provide scratch parties for various purposes; one such call was made to the Chatham Division on 23rd May for Calais 1940.

Four officers and eighty-one other ranks mustered for duty of a hazardous nature under the command of Captain G.W.A. Courtice. They boarded the transport and headed at full speed to Chatham dockyard.

They arrived at Calais in H.M.S. Verity after midnight. Their first task was to help defend the citadel, fighting alongside the French Marines against German parachutists who were organising ready for the main assault to capture Calais.

Battles at Narvik

They entered action never to be seen again

In the afternoon one platoon and the machine gun section were ordered to reinforce the Army in the front line. The Machine gun section was never seen again.

The citadel was bombed and shelled so heavily that it became untenable; Captain Courtice ordered his men to withdraw to the jetty.

They had to run across a blazing drawbridge and make their way through the town under a hail of bombs, artillery fire and bullets from snipers who had penetrated the town and were in the houses.

Their numbers sadly thinned, they eventually took up a position on a ridge of sand dunes outside the town with the men of the Rifle Brigade, whose withdrawal they were to cover that night.

Germans were relentlessly attacking

The ridge was heavily bombed repeatedly by German aircraft, and shelled constantly be artillery fire. Later, Captain Courtice re-organized this position into double sentry posts that night and the following day.

Sergeants Mitchell and East were despatched to collect any Marines who had become separated from the main party during the withdrawal from the citadel.

When they returned on the 27th the ridge had been vacated and there was no sign of Captain Courtice and his men. There is little doubt that they had become prisoners of war.

Their position had become desperate. The German gunners could see every movement of the troops in the town. The German bombers renewed their attacks, unopposed, and the artillery appeared to have an endless supply of shells.

The wounded needed assistance

The two sergeants then helped some of the wounded to embark in a small motor-boat, the Condor, which had come in, but she ran aground during an air raid and had to be temporarily abandoned.

Sergeant Mitchell brought in a badly-wounded officer of the Rifle Brigade and decided to get hold of some rafts, Carley floats and small boats that were lying outside the harbour. Corporal Sowden and Marines Goodall and Beckham volunteered to swim out and bring them in. They were in the water over four hours.

A Motor Torpedo Boat picked them up, exhausted, as they were reaching the boats. Corporal Sowden as the M.T.B. approached them looked up from the water and said: "got any room? If not I'll carry on."

The fighters were rescued

A Motor Torpedo Boat reached the inner harbour and took off all of the soldiers and marines that were present, except Sergeant Mitchell, who remained behind with the Captain and the crew of the Condor in the hope of collecting more wounded men.

Two large bombs fell near the Condor. The waves caused by the explosions lifted her off of the mud and re-floated her. She was taken alongside at once, and embarked some more men, including Sergeant Mitchell. Then surviving the attacks of the German bombers and a torpedo from a U-boat, reached Dover late in the day.

For their devotion in saving the wounded, Sergeant Mitchell was awarded the C.G.M., Sergeant East the D.S.M. Out of the eighty- six Royal Marines who originally embarked at Chatham only twenty-one returned, all of the officers were lost.

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Prisoners shot for trying to escape

Among the Marines who became prisoners of war Marine S.F. Smith. While he was in the hands of the Germans he saw another prisoner shot against a church wall for trying to escape.

He saw other prisoners whipped because they could no longer march. He saw men bayoneted for accepting food from the French villagers.

One night in Belgium he succeeded in escaping from his guards. Marching with feet bare and bleeding, unshaven, his ragged uniform covered in mud, and living on such food as he could pick up in the fields, he reached Brussels, hoping to get to Ostend and steal a boat. He found that it was impossible to reach the coast because of the number of Germans.

Befriended by a Belgium family, he set off for France and eventually, after extraordinary privations and adventures, he reached Marseilles, where he was imprisoned by the French, escaped but was captured within five-hundred yards of the Spanish frontier and was subsequently repatriated as unfit for Active Service.

The record of his experiences is a shining example of that self-reliance in overcoming even the most appalling difficulties, and to still have the determination to keep on going when all appeared to be lost, which for some unknown reason seems to be the birthright of the Royal Marine.

The next Link below will be: "Crete Rearguard Action"

Calais 1940 Crete Rearguard Action

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