Contrary to popular belief, the destroyer HMS Shikari’s departure just before dawn on 3 June, the last day of the “Miracle of Dunkirk” during Operation Dynamo, was not the end of the evacuation from France in 1940.
Neither was the near-catastrophic (especially if you were a Highlander) Operation Cycle, which pulled another 14,000 Allied troops from Le Havre and St. Valery-en-Caux between June 10 and 13, 1940.
What followed was the desperate Operation Ariel (Aerial).
This saw the French Atlantic ports at Cherbourg (30,630 Brits of the 52nd Lowland Division, 1st Armoured Division, Beauman Division, and Norman Force), Saint-Malo (21,474 men, mostly of the 1st Canadian Division), Brest (28,145 British and 4,439 Allied personnel), Saint Nazaire/Nantes (57,235 troops, of whom 54,411 were British), La Pallice/La Rochelle (10,000 British and more than 4,000 Polish), as well as smaller contingents from Le Verdon, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Saint Jean-de-Luz, continue near round-the-clock withdrawals as late as 25 June to Africa and the Caribbean in the case of the French, and to England in the case of British and other allies. Meanwhile, low-key departures continued from French Mediterranean ports, especially of colonial troops (and those newly designated as such) retrograding back to North Africa, until 14 August, a full three weeks past the effective date of the Second Armistice at Compiègne.
One almost forgotten chapter in Ariel was story of the exiled Free Polish soldiers evacuated from France aboard the humble British Pool Shipping Co merchant steamer SS Alderpool (4,313 tons), which left the port of La Pallice (which incidentally was the pierside backdrop for films Das Boot and Raiders of the Lost Ark) 85 years ago today on 19 June 1940 with more 4,000 exiled Poles in French uniform aboard.
These men, of the nascent 4th (Free) Polish Infantry Division (4. Dywizja Piechoty) under Maj. Gen. Stanisław Franciszek Sosabowski, had beat feet from their training camp at Parthenay, in western France, toward Saint Nazaire but only made it to Ancenis by 16 June before finding out that the port was closed. Rather than stack arms, they pushed 110 miles down the coast to La Rochelle by any available means– coal train, lorry, and forced march– to catch the last British ship leaving from there. Sosabowski had already escaped one German POW camp the year before and wasn’t keen on having to do it again.
Once aboard Alderpool, the slow steam to Plymouth took four long days, bracing for U-boats at night and Messerschmitt by day.
Lance Sergeant Władysław Jacek Prytyś, a Polish Army photographer, was able to chronicle the withdrawal to La Rochelle and on Alderpool, in a collection of images now in the Imperial War Museum.
Polish troops of the 4th Infantry Division standing in an assembly point in Ancenis, before their evacuation. The evacuation of that particular unit began on 16 June 1940 in Ancenis till 19 June 1940 when they reached La Rochelle to be evacuated on the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool. Note their uniforms of the French mountain infantry, the famed “Blue Devils” of the Chasseurs Alpins. The French had already equipped a similar outfit, the newly formed Polish Independent Podhalan Rifles Brigade (Samodzielna Brygada Strzelców Podhalańskich) under Brig. Gen Zygmunt Szyszko-Bohusz, which fought in Norway. IWM (HU 109715)
Retreating Polish units on board a train on the way to an evacuation point in the port of La Rochelle after the collapse of French defenses during the German invasion of France. IWM (HU 109739)
Long line of lorries, crammed full of Polish soldiers, standing room only, on the way to an evacuation point in the port of La Rochelle after the collapse of French defenses during the German invasion of France. IWM (HU 109741)
Same as the above, displaying the desperation on the faces of men who had already fought the Germans in their homeland and were looking at being on the losing side of the Fall of France, yet still hopeful to make it to England to continue fighting. IWM (HU 109740)
Lance Sergeant Władysław Prytyś is looking out for German ships while one of his colleagues is scanning the sky with a French FM 24/29 light machine gun for enemy planes. Photograph taken on board the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool on the way to Plymouth. IWM (HU 109750)
Mass of soldiers of various allied armies and civilians being evacuated on board the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool on the way to Plymouth. IWM (HU 109744)
A Polish Officer, still in a prewar uniform, and a Polish Air Force pilot standing by a 3-inch deck gun and .303 Vickers MG on board the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool on the way to Plymouth. IWM (HU 109745)
Polish soldiers with national eagles on their French uniform berets checking a map while being evacuated on board the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool on the way to Plymouth. SS Alderpool left the French port of La Pallice in La Rochelle on 19 June 1940 to reach Plymouth on 22 June 1940. IWM (HU 109743)
A cigarette-smoking Polish soldier loading a French MAS-36 rifle on board the British steam merchant ship SS Alderpool on the way to Plymouth. An old 3-inch deck gun is visible in the background, and a French FM 24/29 light machine gun on the right, mounted as an anti-aircraft weapon. IWM (HU 109748)
Once ashore in Plymouth, the Poles were rushed to Scotland to rest up and change uniforms, again, this time into British kit. The 4th Infantry, after contributing to the defense of the British Isles, should Operation Sea Dragon occur, never did make it to full strength.
Many of its men wound up in the 1st (Polish) Independent Parachute Brigade (1. Samodzielna Brygada Spadochronowa) in September 1941, originally with the idea that they would be dropped into German-occupied Poland at some point.
Paratroopers of the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade adjusting their parachutes before taking off. IWM (MH 1965)
Instead, Sosoboski, as a British brigadier, led them back to the continent in September 1944 for the “Bridge too far” that was Operation Market Garden, suffering 25 percent casualties.
Sosoboski, portrayed by the great Gene Hackman (albeit with the worst Polish accent imaginable) in 1977’s A Bridge Too Far, passed a decade before the film’s release. He died in London, exiled from his homeland, having spent his last years as an assembly line worker in an automobile factory. However, his remains were installed in a military cemetery in Warsaw with honor.
As for Alderpool, she was lost on 3 April 1941, southwest of Reykjavik, while part of convoy SC-26, torpedoed by U-73 (Helmut Rosenbaum) and sent to the bottom slowly via a pair of G7es. Gratefully, instead of 4,000 Allied troops aboard, all that was lost was a cargo of grain. Her full crew and gunners were picked up by another steamer in the convoy and landed in Scotland.
Her master, Tom Valentine Frank, had earned an OBE and the Polish Cross of Valour (Krzyz Walecznych) for his work in helping save the Poles. Sadly, Capt. Frank would not be as lucky on his final command, the steamer SS Ashby, which was sunk in November 1941 by U-43 (Wolfgang Luth).
Lest we forget.
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