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

**ivor43** · 30-07-2012, 08:03

Good Morning.
I really am going to have to stop these late night thinking sessions, I am loosing too much beauty sleep. I need all I can get.
But the accounts of RAF Pilots I referred to earlier got me thinking.
You mentioned a Café owned by a M Tavernier, or something like that. If this is not far from the Cemetery, then is it not likely that it would have been used by the HQ staff. As Anthony was a messenger then it is probable he would have been sent to the Café for fresh supplies of tea/coffee etc. quite often.

As they were in this position for a couple of days he would have got to know the owner.
Now as I said earlier if Goddard had given Anthony Morphine and others had given him theirs as they would not need them as POW’s , He could have enough for a couple of days. As soon as he found he could move, might he not have made for the Café where he had friends.(Owner/ Waitress?)
He could well have been here over night and next morning when the owner went off early to get supplies from a local farm (Farm Boulet) Anthony could have been hidden in the back of his wagon. Some RAF guys were hidden under loads of Hay or Turnips things like that.
If he was hidden in the barn, then the farmer and young lady (waitress?) did’nt find him. They knew he was there, from early morning 28^th until he was found sometime on 29^th by the SS. And I suspect that they were made to witness his shooting as punishment for helping him.
John, before you enter me for another Literary Award. Think very hard about this.
Jim and Tony say he was never posted missing. Why? Because he was with witnesses all the time who could account for him.
A number of the RAF guys were also shot. Because They Were In Civy Clothing given to them by the locals. If this happened to Anthony he could have been shot as a SPY. It was done.

Ivor.

**Baconwallah** · 30-07-2012, 11:19

A possible scenario, Ivor. Good thinking again. But although I like the love interest and the heroism of all involved, I do see a couple of flies in the ointment.

The DLI arrived late at night on the 25th. Men had already been killed in the past week, the survivors had had little sleep. Occasional shelling, enemy aircraft overhead, sounds of battle (B Coy RWF at Robecq) in the distance. The 26th was spent in feverishly organising the defences of the HQ farm. An attack could come at any moment. Not a very good time to go boozing and getting to know the natives in a café which was part of the outer defences (and therefore probably not functioning anyway). This wasn't Salisbury Plain or Hohne Camp, it was the front line in a fighting war.

With Germans all over the place, the French probably not back yet, wounds in both legs, drowsy from the morphine, a crawl of some 500 yards over shelled ground to the corner café is somewhat improbable.

Last but not least, if this is what happened he would not have been an anonymous body in a ditch. He would have been a local hero and M Faivre would have heard the story and mentioned it in his book.

John

**ivor43** · 30-07-2012, 13:34

John.
A couple of good points,however your feverish preparation of defenses, would a batman have a role in this or would he be more of a 'Gofer' and i am pretty sure while waiting for his order to be completed he would chat to whoever was doing it.and i said tea/coffee i did not mention Booze. But as i said before when the morphine kicked in it may have been possible for him to walk 500 meters, with difficulty to the cafe.
Also i thought, from a map you put on, that the front line appeared much further south.
While looking for something else i found the following.

http://www.worcestershireregiment.co...an_h_kallmeyer.

I was looking for any indication of the nature of Antony's wounds and in ww2 talk i found this post of yours Jim
''he states when he left your uncle he had minor wounds to both legs and neck but was quite well apart from this.RSM Goddard wished to take Anthony with them but the German soldiers present refused and said their field hospital units were in the area and would take care of him .Indeed RSM Goddard came across stretcher bearers shortly after they ''
John this might change the situation, as i was under the impression that i had read that he could not walk ? Jim could you clarify please.

Ivor

**Baconwallah** · 30-07-2012, 14:27

A very interesting link, Ivor! The translation is awful, though, looks like it was done by Google. Kallmeyer apparently served with the SS Verfügungsdivision, which on the 27th supported 3 Pz Div on the right flank and took part in the advance to Calonne and Merville. Unfortunately he gives no details of his activities on the 26th and 27th. On the 24th he seems to have been involved in the abortive German advance through St Venant, which late that night was recalled to the Aire canal on Hitler's orders.

I very much doubt the café was functioning as such when the DLI were on the scene. It had been incorporated in the defences [Townsend diary], which ran along the railway line south of St Venant (see the 1917 map in one of my earlier posts; both café and railway have since disappeared). I'm sure that, with an enemy attack expected at any moment, the owners of a café 150 yards behind the front line would have been advised to get the hell out of there, if they hadn't already reached that conclusion themselves.

Anthony would have been employed in organising the defences, with all the others. I doubt his position as batman to the RSM would have exempted him from those duties, at the time much more important than making tea (or going out to buy it) for his superior officer.

I was under the impression that Anthony was left on the canal bank precisely because he could not walk and the group of PoWs had to cross some difficult terrain (boggy meadows, heavily shelled no doubt) so could not carry him. "I certainly gained the impression that his wounds were not fatal. We wanted to take him with us but as we had no means of carrying him and the ground was very rough the German guards ordered us to make him comfortable and leave him to be collected by their field ambulance which was working in the vicinity."

John

**jungle1810** · 30-07-2012, 15:37

Hello,
I have placed a diagram of the Rue Harrison in the forum photo it is off the Rue de Merville D 122 gallery I also put 2 more photos of the British Military Cemetery in the forum gallery as a point of interest. Regards RBD

**Verrieres** · 30-07-2012, 16:39

Originally Posted by vori101

John.
A couple of good points,however your feverish preparation of defenses, would a batman have a role in this or would he be more of a 'Gofer' and i am pretty sure while waiting for his order to be completed he would chat to whoever was doing it.and i said tea/coffee i did not mention Booze. But as i said before when the morphine kicked in it may have been possible for him to walk 500 meters, with difficulty to the cafe.
Also i thought, from a map you put on, that the front line appeared much further south.
While looking for something else i found the following.

http://www.worcestershireregiment.co...an_h_kallmeyer.

I was looking for any indication of the nature of Antony's wounds and in ww2 talk i found this post of yours Jim
''he states when he left your uncle he had minor wounds to both legs and neck but was quite well apart from this.RSM Goddard wished to take Anthony with them but the German soldiers present refused and said their field hospital units were in the area and would take care of him .Indeed RSM Goddard came across stretcher bearers shortly after they ''
John this might change the situation, as i was under the impression that i had read that he could not walk ? Jim could you clarify please.

Ivor

The letter...should read the letters!.....The one we are using is the Red Cross Varient following an appeal to Switzerland in 1941 from the British Red Cross at the request of Anthonys family.Only one enquiry was made to RSM Goddard who replied in September 1941 (I believe).There exists another letter that from the RSM to Anthonys family.The third and the one I was first aware of in relation to the minor/flesh wounds came from the son of RSM Goddard whom I was in contact with years before I became aware of Tonys quest.This situation troubled the RSM that much he spoke of it with his family. I had copies of all of them ...but now for the problem..I cannot find them! A few years ago a spectacular PC crash resulted in a lot of lost files ..most I recovered but the software I used to recover them renamed each file with a random number! Which makes it pretty hard to find any of my old files plus since this crash I have backed up my work on external hard-drives..just in case.I will come across them again when I have a little time a paragraph from the family letter was reproduced on my website it read;-

"I heard your son's voice calling me from the canal bank. I immediately went over to him and found that he had a flesh wound in the neck also wounds in both legs. He was concious at the time and spoke to me quite rationally. I certainly gained the impression that his wounds were not fatal. We wanted to take him with us but as we had no means of carrying him and the ground was very rough the German guards ordered us to make him comfortable and leave him to be collected by their field ambulance which was working in the vicinity. We met some stretcher bearers shortly afterwards and informed them as to your sons whereabouts. The fighting in the area had ceased so that there was no apparent danger of him receiving further wounds."

Theres loads of my stuff on that WW2 Talk site but I do not post there any more.
On the subject of letters (and computer crashes) I have a copy of M.Faivres letter to Tony from May 2011.M.Faivre points out that he has had major problems due to his computer crashing and the files relating to St Venant are amongst them.He asks for all available information including a photograph of Anthony. He does point out he has many enquiries from relatives to deal with before he can look into this and has a major project opening in Cassel in May 2012 (I was there in June and its not finished!) He points out he was very lucky to identify Tom Rodgers and quotes another case where eyewitnesses to a soldiers death (Pte Fytche 2 DLI)were found, reports record as being killed on or around the 26th-27th yet the body is in RENESCURE CHURCHYARD reportedly killed on the 15th May 1940 some 12 days before ! He confirms he has all of the index cards and documents which the Mayor collected together in 1940 and asks for patience.
I will bottom out the letters issue.

Best

Jim

**Verrieres** · 30-07-2012, 21:26

Okay ,Found them apart from the one from RSM Goddards son which may have been an E-Mail on my last computer.RSM Goddard made his own enquiries whilst in the Camp and found no clue to Anthony`s fate (The letter is written in pencil and is very feint in parts) What is clear is RSM Goddard was NOT with Anthony at the time of his own capture he specifically said ;-

I was captured on the 27th May 1940 at St Venant and as I was being moved to the rear I heard your son call out to me....

In relation to Anthonys wounds he lists the flesh wound to his neck then mentions the leg wounds..I may be reading too much into this but humour me particularly you Ivor as an ex-Police officer if you came across an injured party in the street when you call it in and request an ambulance which injuries would you list first?...The most serious? ie;- He has two gunshot wounds to his legs and a flesh wound to the neck. Its got me thinking that Ivor has a point , Anthony may have had trouble travelling over rough terrain but he may have had some mobility..?
Now I`m going to throw a spanner in the works! In the letter from Anthonys family to RSM Goddard after Goddards release there is a reference to the date of Anthonys capture given by the Red Cross(hopefully a typo) ...24th May 1940.
There is also mention of correspondance from, what I read as, Pte Towns (faded) of the Durham Light Infantry to Anthonys mother stating her son was in their camp suffering from memory loss and a stomach wound ? A mistaken identity very likely I do not know what happened to Pte Towns but there is no Pte Towns listed for the DLI in the 1945 PoW Roll???? I`ll go away and see what I can (if anything) find on Pte Towns.
Best

Jim

PS.Before I forget I found this image at the IWM Collection its from 1918 but it says it was one of the Bridges at St Venant??

**Baconwallah** · 30-07-2012, 21:37

The Pte Towns/Towne story is interesting. If it is true, he must have known and recognised Anthony.

The drawing shows the drawbridge across the Aire canal at la Pierrière. See my 1917 map [post #25], square P20. Seeing the bridge, it is obvious why the French army built a Pigeau bridge alongside it.

I wouldn't attach much importance to the order of the wounds as given by Goddard. No doubt, knowing his batman well, he looked at his face first of all and thus noticed the neck wound. Then he checked for other wounds.

John.

teecee1941 · 30-07-2012, 23:18

Jim,

This probably means nothing but you never know. RSM Goddard, after speaking singularly, ''I heard his voice, I went over to him'' etc.. A sentence or two later he says ''We wanted to take him with us''......''.We had no means of carrying him''.........''The German guards ordered us to make him comfortable'' ---- If the situation went from 'I' to 'We', who were the others and when did they turn up? Most importantly, how far could they have carried him before the guards called a halt. If he wasn't gravely wounded, he may have been able to put up with a bit of discomfort before the carriers were made to put him down and leave him to be picked up by the stretcher bearers.

Another thing that keeps bugging me is this;- As RSM Goddard's batman, Anthony would surely have been quite well known to all the other lads. Well known enough to be recognised without the need to read his dog tags. If a few people saw him killed, it would have been immediately obvious who he was and the word would have went around that Goddard's batman had been killed. Seeing as how RSM Goddard survived the war, some time at the end of it, someone would have mentioned on the grapevine that they had heard that his batman had been killed. It is more likely of course that he was killed and nobody saw it. I suppose this all adds to the ever-growing list of 'What ifs'.

teecee1941 · 30-07-2012, 23:58

Re Pte Towns;- I have the original letter sent by Anthony's father to RSM Goddard at the end of the war. It was forwarded to me by RSM Goddard's son a few months ago. When I read that Pte Towns had been in touch with the family to say that Anthony had been in the same camp as him with a stomach wound and loss of memory, I immediately dismissed this as a case of mistaken identity. The Red Cross say there are no records of Anthony being in a POW camp. In any case, the stomach wound is not consistent with what we already know. It is however, quite puzzling how Pte Towns managed to send a letter to Anthony's father 'once or twice' during the time he was in a POW camp. More puzzling is how did he get Anthony's family's address?

I did, a week or two ago, find another Corkhill in the DLI. Perhaps he was the one in the POW camp with the stomach wound but then again, how did Pte Towns get the correct address?

Is there anything in this story that is not a mystery?