saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

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17-07-2012, 22:58
Verrieres

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

I would rather keep an open mind on the Despatch Rider aspect as he could have been with either company when he was wounded but I take your point rgarding sticking to facts. Which brings me to the piece about RSM Goddard making him comfortable on the canal bank there is some discrepencie in the RSMs letter to the Red Cross and the one sent to the family..the sentence `I heard your son calling me from the canal bank`is featured in one, is this as the RSM was being marched away? the Germans were certainly present at the time,they had to be for the RSM to ask them if they could take Anthony with them?
The hospital was not a German hospital if was a British hospital which was set up to receive the first wounded

Quote:

As the tanks arrived the sense of panic amongst the Tommies was heightened and they ran along the road leading from the Canal de la Lys; there was renewed carnage.The British set up a hospital in Madame Boulet’s house. This was situated at the crossroads on the Hurtevent and Bas Hamel roads. (Looking at Google its still there)The first casualties were taken there; before long about twenty sick and wounded were cared for in this house.

I know its all down to the detail but as Ivor pointed out if we can find the answer and Tony goes to the authorities with his findings then he has to be able to show all avenues have been covered .He needs the answers because if we know this you can bet your life the authorities will know more.An example is for whatever reason Anthony was known to be dead by the 29th May 1940 despite any Red Cross Enquiry/letter some two to three years later,he was struck off strength on the 29th May 1940.(Fact) He never featured in the extensive search for `2DLI` missing men he was simply listed as `DEAD`...how were they so sure?

Best Wishes

Jim
17-07-2012, 23:25
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

The drawing no doubt represents the narrow bridge over the lock gates, as shown (from another direction) in the photo. The lock keeper's house is still there. RWF memorial to the right.

Past the lock the road continued across the lock island to Haverskerque. To the left was the large Pigeau bridge, now replaced by the modern road bridge of the D818 which crosses the Lys between the lock and the cemetery. It looks like the Pigeau bridge was the point from where the little bridge in tyhe drawing was depicted.

The Boulet house, like the Boulet farm, was in the area in which D coy 2 DLI had been cut off by German troops (6th Coy, 3 Inf Regt, I believe) which had infiltrated to the canal on the western side of Saint-Venant. No way RSM Goddard could have seen Anthony there.

John

Attachment 2852
18-07-2012, 00:57
ivor43

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

 Hi all.
Brilliant stuff Bob, but I suspect that the painting shows the locks at the head of the Aire canal. Which starts close to the bridge at St Venant. I believe this is too narrow for the Lys.
If my memory serves me correctly and i will check as soon as i can but i seem to recall the Aire, then what may have been an island then the Lys.
as i am working through my mobile phone i do not have full access.But is someone could check this for me i would appreciate
it.
john. when you said earlier that there were 2 bridges a metal one and a wooden one did you mean the metal one was over the Aire and the wooden one over the Lys.the main Rd passing over both.

ivor
18-07-2012, 01:05
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

The wooden bridge was over the Lys, Ivor. The metal one was over the Aire canal at l'Epinette, 4 km from St Venant. The Aire canal is much wider and sadly lacks a cemetery, which complicates your identification. There also was no RWF crossing of the Aire canal under fire. B Coy came closest to the canal, but never reached it.

You are correct where the little island is concerned. On the southern side is the Lys canal and the lock, on the northern side the old bed of the Lys, wider and with a weir. My photo looks at the island and the lock keeper´s house from the south. Check Google Street View when you're back behind your computer, and you'll see what I mean.

John
18-07-2012, 14:50
ivor43

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

 Morning all
Another grey, wet and windy day in West Wales. Have been back from Malta 2 weeks and I think we need a short holiday. Caravans are fine if you have good weather. Am thinking of 3or 4 days in northern France visiting Dunkirk and some other interesting places not far away, hmm I wonder where. but I will have to persuade ‘her indoors’. watch this space.
The last few days I have been reflecting on what we have achieved, sadly not very much. Tony has not got much further with his quest.
However from the outset I knew this would be very difficult, not only from stories about what my father went through, but also from books that I read as a youth eg ‘Scourge of the Swastika’ ,’a judgement at Nuremburg’ and many other personal accounts, from authors like Leonard Cheshire. VC. And Richard Hillary.( The Last Enemy).so I was fully aware what I was getting into.
But, despite our apparent lack of progress I have been amazed at the amount of info that we have uncovered. But I am, in a way, somewhat uneasy about some of it. Apart from the Diary of Major Townsend and the RWF Diary. Every thing else seems to have been written some time later, so, to me at least, raises some doubt as to accuracy and completeness.
I have a few more ideas to try and progress this, ok not more tank tracks. But I’m not quite ready to concede the east yet there is still some digging to do there and i..will.. get the answers.

The truth is out there somewhere.

ivor
18-07-2012, 19:25
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

Don't be too optimistic about the RWF WD, Ivor. The only survivors of the Bn to reach Dunkirk and write in the WD were two 2nd Lts, the QM and eighty other ranks. None of them with a good idea of what happened, none of them experienced in writing a WD. i expect the situation for the Durhams was much the same.

John
18-07-2012, 22:32
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

Later this week I hope to have the account of the campaign written by the captured RWF officers (while still PoWs). That should answer a lot of questions.

John
19-07-2012, 03:34
ivor43

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

 Good morning all.
First I have to apologise. My identification of the canal as the Aire was wrong the Aire is a much wider canal and much further west. Sorry.
Would I be right in thinking that the artist is on the island looking east and the tanks are approaching from the St Floris direction. and are just passing the cemetery. Interesting.

Guy’s if I had’nt been out with friends for a meal, Beef Madras Curry and a couple of large glasses of a quite reasonable ,for UK, red wine I think I might be banging my head against a suitable wall.
Will someone please tell me what we can trust. virtually everything we have here has been written some time later. days, months, while a P.O.W. or maybe even years later. The only thing that seems to be a fairly on the spot account is the diary of Major Townsend
Having been a Police Officer, I know when you have been dealing with an ugly situation, if you do not write it up straight away, once the adrenalin rush is gone it is very easy to omit details. The guy’s in this situation would have been so intent in getting away that they may not even have been aware of who or what was going on about them, this was ever man for himself. So any account written days later has to be suspect.
So where do we go from here. John your reports from the P.O.W’s may give a clue, I don’t know. But I think we will have to start some ‘ Lateral Thinking’.
The German Military History site I linked the other day is no longer active. So do we have any other possible avenues to that side.
The only other thing that I know of that occurred at the time that seems to be unexplained is what did Col Harrison ,if it is our Colonel. Do to merit having a Road named after him.
I know I have raised this before but I can find nothing on the web. But I think we need to try to find something, anything, outside the records that could point us in the right direction.

It’s thinking time

ivor
19-07-2012, 13:42
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

Ivor, you have discovered the essence of writing history. It's not unlike your old profession (or mine). Weight of evidence is what matters. But please bear in mind that a very late source written by a competent researcher is always more reliable than an early (even eyewitness) source by someone unable to grasp the larger picture or deliberately trying to mislead or just plain stupid. And that is why historians are needed to sift and weigh the evidence.

Your German mil hist site was a site run by American admirers of the SS who could not tell the difference between tanks and carriers. Their historical summaries were mainly based on publications by former SS members and their fan club, not an entirely reliable source I should think. I have yet to see the first post-war interview with a former SS man in which the shooting of PoWs was admitted. "Ït coudn't have happened in my unit, we were all gentlemen" was the usual reply. See the German interviews in the St Venant War Crimes investigation.

As you so rightly ask, where do we go from here? I can only reiterate what I have said before. As the Ferme Boulet area had been cut off from the main position by two separate German columns which had reached the canal W of St Venant, any reference to the Boulet family properties can be discounted as not relevant to our inquiry. Where we should look is the area of the last stand of the DLI along the canal between the Taverne house at the junction of Rue des Amusoires and the canal dyke on the E side and the cemetery on the W side. That is where the RSM was, that is were he last saw Pte Corkhill and made him comfortable. Anything else only confuses the issue.

We should look for a 1942 description of the field graves in that area. There is one (in our possession) for the Rue d'Aire - Bas-Hamel area, there is probably also one in existence for the canal bank E of St Venant - if only we could find it. That should provide the necessary clues.

John
19-07-2012, 14:55
Baconwallah

Re: saint venant 1940-------farm boulet

Quote:

Originally Posted by vori101

Would I be right in thinking that the artist is on the island looking east and the tanks are approaching from the St Floris direction. and are just passing the cemetery.
ivor

You would be approximately right, Ivor. The viewpoint is rather high, which makes me think that the artist was standing on the wooden Pigeau bridge instead of on the bank of the island.

Here again we have a nice example of the pitfalls that endanger the path of us historians. The artist must have seen the quays of the lock from where he was standing, but did not draw them. What he did draw was the cemetery, with the tanks approaching from the Rue des Amusoires - canal dyke junction, but the cemetery looks a lot closer to the bridge than it actually was. Fortunately the location can be pinpointed witht he aid of the lock keeper's house, which hasn't changed a bit in the past 72 years.

John

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