Escape from St-Valery-en-Caux (eBook)

The Adventures of Captain B.C. Bradford

Andrew Bradford (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
402 Seiten
The History Press (Verlag)
978-1-80399-744-5 (ISBN)

Infos

The dramatic story of Captain Bill Bradford, Adjutant of the 1st Battalion Black Watch, compiled using diaries and letters, coded messages and correspondence between his family and the War Office in their desperate effort to hear news of his safety. Escape from St-Valery-en-Caux tells of Captain Bradford's experiences between 1939 and 1941, during which time he was in the thick of the action in France until the surrender of the Highland Division at St-Valery-en-Caux in June 1940. While being marched into captivity Captain Bradford managed to escape once from the Germans and then seven further times from the Vichy French. His son, Andrew Bradford, details his journey to safety in Gibraltar, travelling through France, Spain and North Africa, including a night crossing of the Pyrenees and an astonishing 700-mile voyage in a 17ft sailing boat.

ANDREW BRADFORD was born in British Guyana in 1955 but has lived in Aberdeenshire almost all his life. Educated at Eton College and Aberdeen University, he has been running Kincardine Estate since 1979. The estate's enterprises include the provision of affordable rural housing and, recently, corporate entertainment. He painstakingly researched and transcribed family letters, journals and documents to piece together, edit and present his father's incredible adventures during the Second World War.

Textauszug

1

The Phoney War: October 1939–May 1940

The 1st Bn The Black Watch had crossed to France with the 4th Division early in October 1939, and in due course reached its area near Lens, where it remained for 2 months.

10 October 1939

I am not allowed to say where I am which is a pity. We had a simply awful voyage – rougher than anything since the war began. We were all terribly ill – very miserable and not so happy when we landed.

We are in a very nice village here, in pretty country. Chris Melville and I are billeted with M. le Notaire, and are very comfortable. There is a beautiful Château just outside the village where Bde [Brigade] is, and we all live at the inn, where they feed us very well.

I had a bath yesterday in a little tub in the laundry. There are no baths at all in the village.

Bradford’s brief diary entry of the journey was economical in detail. His letter said a little more but in truth the journey had been frightful. In peacetime their ship, RMS Mona’s Queen, 2,756 tons, carried trippers to the Isle of Man. For the crossing from Southampton to Cherbourg, on the night of 5/6 October, she carried 1,940 soldiers in such a small space that a large number of men had to stand up all the rough night. Many were very sea-sick on the journey. Bradford managed to survive the crossing without succumbing but, the moment he set foot on land, was sick at the feet of his Commanding Officer to the great amusement of others.

On arrival in France there was little organisation or even provision of food. The battalion had brought, against orders, cookers, rations, blankets and ammunition and the first of these came into immediate use. Late in the evening on 6 October they entrained and made an overnight journey to Noyen-sur-Sarthe, near Le Mans. From there a 10-mile route-march took them to billets in Parcé-sur-Sarthe where the villagers were most welcoming. Col Stephen reported: ‘One of the officers went so far as to sing the Marseillaise at a small dinner party. This did not go quite with the bang intended as the inhabitants of Parcé were Royalists.’

To overcome strict censorship Bradford had arranged a simple method of communication with his father. The phrase ‘I am not allowed to say where I am’ was the sign that he was going to tell them exactly where he was! In the next two sentences, if one knows what to look for, can clearly be read ‘Parce near Le Mans’ [see underlined letters]. While not necessarily included in the extracts used in this book, several of Bradford’s letters contain similar hidden messages and there is no doubt his parents were able to trace his moves. Later on, this simple mechanism was to prove rather more useful.

On 9 October an advance party left by road for the Belgian border while the rest of the men, after a route-march in which all got soaked, entrained at Noyen and after a 23-hour journey arrived at Henin-Leitard and marched to billets throughout the town. Stephen noted: ‘It was difficult to believe that a town could exist with such a lack of sanitation.’ 14

Section of letter of 10 October 1939 containing a concealed message. I am not allowed to say where I am is the signal that the message is concealed. The dots under the ‘p’ of ‘simply’ and the ‘s’ of ‘so’ indicate the beginning and end of the message. The writing has been heavily inked with the exception of the relevant letters conveying the message – see the black dots over the letters in the lower version.

No preparations seemed to have been put in place for any military advance and, as Stephen recorded, ‘apart from a certain amount of excitement among the civilian population at the arrival of British troops, with the obvious hope of making a bit of money, all was peace and quiet.’

The French border with Belgium was largely undefended which was a considerable contrast to the heavily defended Maginot Line covering the Franco-German border to the east. On 15 October they began, in heavy rain, to prepare defensive positions on the canal to the north of Dourges. The first day’s work collapsed owing to lack of revetting material. Officers cut trees in the vicinity for that purpose but this was promptly made a court-martial offence by the French. One Guards officer bought a whole plantation and, when the French authorities tried to stop him, was able to see them off by advising that the wood was his and he could do with it what he liked. Stephen records, ‘such was the conduct of war in 1939’.15

Some requests for items from home were rather prescient:

16 October 1939

My French is improving slightly. Can you send me ‘Brush up your French’?

The battalion was put to work constructing defences over a distance of 3,000 yards on the canal-bank between Beauvin and La Bassée. This was a large task for one battalion, especially when they had to send one company daily to Attiches to construct an Anti-Tank obstacle around a château in which some of the few British tanks were parked. Stephen reported, ‘it is understood that the obstacle was so complete that some of the tanks never succeeded in getting out’. Clearly the command organisation was lacking in direction.

One new duty which the officers had to carry out was the censoring of letters. Noel Jardine-Paterson noted: ‘It was unbelievable how many letters the men wrote and usually 1½ to 2 hours a day had to be spent in doing this. It was not a nice job having to read the letters through and sign them at the bottom and on the envelope but we got used to it in time.’16

At home Bradford’s parents were battening down for the war. Clearly they’d hoarded some petrol and were having to revise their domestic arrangements as staff were called-up:

23 October 1939

Is your petrol lasting out well? I wonder if you have used the bottles yet. How are those two new maids doing?

While the battalion did not move during this time there seemed to be frequent changes in the billeting arrangements:

1 November 1939

We had to move our Bn HQ and HQ Company Officers’ Mess, as the owner of our previous house [a M. Sixe, Notaire] was demobbed, and wanted his house. We have got another house, which does quite well but isn’t half as nice or big. This is some way off, and so I have moved out of my banker’s to be nearer it, and now live with Pat C-P [Campbell-Preston] in a large and comfortable mansion belonging to a mine owner. It is modern, and our rooms are papered with dark, ornate paper, but they are huge rooms, with central heating, hot and cold water, and really well furnished. We have a bathroom and everything, and it is a great improvement, except that Madame loathes having us and shows it in every way she can. She looks a typical Victorian, tall, erect, and very severe. Monsieur is very nice, about 70, with a big beard. I think we shall soon thaw Madame, as she has quite a kind face.

But it was not to be:

16 November 1939

I am afraid I have made no impression on my hostess yet, and she still disregards us completely.

Although ‘at war’ the quest for social life amongst at least the younger officers did not cease altogether. Jardine-Paterson reported:

We didn’t dine in Mess much but usually went to Douai, the Café de Paris, or Lens, the Hotel du Monde, or to the Café du Centre. During the day we used to wear battledress but in the evening we changed into jacket and trews which was a good thing and much more comfortable. We had one regrettable incident when we went to Lens one night in trucks and a drunken Pole was run over on the way back. However the matter was hushed up and the only result was that trucks were not allowed to be taken out for pleasure parties in the evening. This brought a new character into our ken, Pompe Finnebre, as we called him. He was a red-faced boozy old man who drove a hearse by day and a taxi by night. We travelled many miles with him, he was a great character and never seemed to mind how late we were or how far we went but he would drive on the wrong side of the road most of the time and he had a habit of turning out all his lights when we reached maximum speed. However we never crashed and without him we should have been completely at a loss. Several times we met Jim Melville and Ted Snowball, also Ian Murray, Father Clark and many others and we had many good parties together. Besides this we used to dine in each others’ messes within the battalion quite a lot.

Bradford’s letters are obviously sketchy in their detail about military activities but it is clear that preparations for war are ongoing.

1 November 1939

I went and watched our first go at firing 2in mortars today, which went off quite well, though the men were very slow at it.

The 2in mortar was, in theory, issued to all infantry platoons but often there were too few and there was little or no ammunition available for training. This letter shows that front line regular infantry had, until November 1939, not fired these weapons in practice. It turned out that only smoke ammunition could be used as...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.2.2024
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Schlagworte: 1940 • Adjutant of the 1st Battalion Black Watch • captain bradford • captan berenger colborne bradfrod • capt bradford • Gibraltar • Highland Division • military biogrpahy • military escape • north africa world war two • prisoner escape • saint valery-en-caux • Second World War • st valery en caux • War Office • ww2 • WWII
• ISBN-10: 1-80399-744-3 / 1803997443
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80399-744-5 / 9781803997445