Tag Archives: Fall of France

Xenophon, ala Poland

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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.

The last of the Class of ’40…

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Two great republics lost their final cadets from the “Class of 1940” in the past few days.

BG Paul D. Phillips

Born on March 9, 1918, Brigadier General Paul Phillips (USMA 1940), a red stripe from almost the moment he put on his butter bar, was recognized as the oldest living West Point Graduate earlier this year and was awarded the Ancient Order of Saint Barbara by the United States Field Artillery Association at 105 years old.

His WWII survival story was epic, having been part of the Philippine Defense Force during the Japanese invasion of those islands in 1941 and then enduring 39 grueling months of captivity in multiple camps of which he later said, “I expected the worst and that’s what I got”:

He fought in the Battle of the Philippines on Mindanao and was taken prisoner in 1942 after the Japanese invaded Cebu and General Sharp surrendered. As a POW, General Phillips traveled from Mindanao to Luzon, then to Japan in January 1945, to Pusan, Korea in April, finally ending up in a prison camp near Mukden in Manchuria. During one move he and his fellow POWs were loaded onto two different ships that were bombed by the U.S. forces, unaware that they contained their fellow servicemembers. The prisoners were rescued mid-August of 1945 in Manchuria by a 5-person team that included one of Phillips’ classmates, James Hennessy. After WWII, BG Phillips served as a gunnery instructor at the Field Artillery School and graduated from Command and General Staff College in 1951.

In March 2009 BG Phillips completed a Veterans History Project oral history interview and earlier this year conducted a second, longer, and more candid interview.

The last living graduate for the USMA Class of 1940, BG Paul D. Phillips (USA, Retired) passed away on August 27, 2023.

In 2010, BG Phillips donated his POW-worn West Point class ring to the Class Ring Memorial Program, its steel mingling with those of future members of the Long Gray Line.

Dernier cadet de Saumur

Also remembered this week is Chef d’Escadron (cavalry major) Yves Raynaud, who passed at age 104. He was the final member of the old École de cavalerie Saumur, the famed French cavalry officer’s school that dated to 1763 and once counted a young George S. Patton in attendance.

Raynaud was among an expanded class of 560 young reservists called up to train as officers (Elèves aspirants de reserve) and, during the hectic final days of the Fall of France in June 1940, took to the field to fight the oncoming Germans.

The Saumur cadets, ordered to retreat to the south on June 15th, instead joined a scratch force composed of a similar battalion of cadets from the infantry school at Saint-Maixent, some colonial troops of the 13ᵉ Regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs (13ᵉ RTA), the remnants of the 6ᵉ Regiment engineers, and a reconnaissance squadron of the 19ᵉ Regiment of Dragoons, totaling between 2,000 and 2,500 depending on whose accounts you read.

Their armament was laughable, consisting of just a handful of Panhard armored cars and Hotchkiss light tanks, five old 75mm guns left over from the Great War, and 10 light mortars as well as similarly scarce small arms– the Saumur cadets often had to share rifles as there wasn’t enough to go around and their only organic support weapons were a few St. Étienne Mle 1907 machine guns that the school had for training purposes.

Defying orders to fall back or at least stack their arms, the force of cadets and stragglers instead stood strong for two days –June 19 and 20– in a delaying action for a series of Loire River bridges between Montsoreau and Gennes now known as the Battle of Saumur or the Battle of the Loire.

Forming what was termed La Haie Sainte (The Sacred Line), and no doubt girded by the fact that the action was fought on the 125th anniversary of Waterloo, the French cadets prevented a much stronger German force (which ultimately grew to 40,000) from crossing the Loire and allowed other units to withdraw through them to the south, escaping to fight again another day.

Their commander, Saumur superintendent Colonel Charles Michon, said of their stand when the bulk of the defeated and demoralized French force was retreating and surrendering:

“There was hope in them. Their sacrifice, among others equally pure, will have maintained the soul of the country (aura maintenu l’âme de la patrie). They, dying, ordered France to rebuild itself, on their tombs, to the height of its immortal destinies”.

Of the 560 students from Saumur Cavalry School, 79 were killed and 47 wounded in the fighting.

Post-war, Saumur, no longer a horse cavalry school, reformed as the current armor school.

Raynaud, who later fought with the Resistance and retired from the Army in the 1960s, died in Toulouse on August 29.

His funeral, with full military honors, was conducted on Sept. 5 at the Saint-Hilaire church in Toulouse.

His was saluted by a guard drawn from the 14e Régiment d’infanterie et de soutien logistique parachutiste, the 1er Régiment du train parachutiste, and the 503e Régiment du train.

Gen. Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French Army, closed the events with, “Sleep in peace my commander, the army pays homage to you.” (Dormez en paix mon commandant, l’armée de Terre vous rend hommage)