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

[Baconwallah]

I should add that there were also two hospitals in St Venant itself. One was the cottage hospital, run by nuns, the other the large psychiatric hospital. The psychiatric hospital served as a dressing station for German wounded, I have seen no reports of British wounded there. The cottage hospital may have treated some, but again I have seen no useful information on the subject.

John

[ivor43]

hi all.
been reading thread from post 1. interesting to recap. i raised the possibility of his dying in hospital in post 129 and Jim raised it again later. but i have also been on the web trying to find an article i read about the German use of hospitals. i believe that i read that they did not use civilian hospitals preferring their own field set up.

i have been looking at ww11 talk and found some interesting stuff relating to other movement around the area.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/1940/41...-1940-a-3.html

this link should take you to page 3. post no 30 is a transcription of the field diary of 228 Field Co RE. you will have to scroll down to the entry for 19/5 quite interesting. the next very interesting bit is the very last post page 8 a photo of a page of a war diary,post 72. the second picture and the entry for the 24this again interesting. the place named as la motte is i believe the village of La Motte De la Bois in the forest . interesting.

[ivor43]

hi all.
I have spent quite some time considering the info in my last post. as you may recall i wanted to know what was going on in the area prior to the arrival of RWF/2DLI. on 24th. Well i now have a much better idea.
from the first quote it would seem possible that this was the unit responsible for blowing the bridge as St Venant if my interpretation of 'Le Bassee canal Aire east' is remotely correct. and it might appear they were mined as early as 20th
It also appears that there was a greater concentration of troops in the forest between Haverskirque and Merville than i thought.
Now for the interesting bits. the war diary on 23rd at 16.10 that enemy tanks had crossed the canal. am i right in assuming that this would have been Robecq. the next entry indicates that part of Robecq was still held on 23rd when, RWF/2DLI were approaching St Floris/St Venant.
Now this is where this part gets really interesting. We know the Germans were in St Venant/St Floris on 23rd as we have reports of the carriers being taken out there is also the report of the short fight for the bridging equipment.But sometime during night of 23rd or on the 24 the 2/5 Yorks withdrew from Robecq to the forest.as they are mentioned in the last entry in the diary. would they have gone through St Venant.
the second and possibly the more crucial entry in the diary is at 1600 on 24th where it says Haverskirque reported as captured and guns directed on it.as far as i can recall the r.v point for RWF/2DLI was stated to be Haversrque but if it fell on 24th then the r.v would have been moved, presumably to the forest, so any moves across St Venant bridge would have been very risky.
but this might explain why the Major reports that a Lt and a number of men were heading for the forest not Haverskirque.
OK any one any ideas. please.

[Verrieres]

A little behind with posts due to working on the Durhams repatriation list so I cannot comment on your queries Ivor,Sorry.

The repatriation list comes in with a total of 91 members of the DLI of these 15 are 2nd DLI men captured in 1940 I cannot narrow it down to a specific day Sorry.There are also two DLI officers whom have no battalion attached to them it is unlikely these were 2DLI officers but just incase I`ve added them here.The Coys are those at time of capture (as far as I can practically research)

109071 Lieutenant D R Prince.
94763 Captain A W C Shortman.

4436736 CSM T Green 2nd Durham Light Infantry `C` Company
4453527 Pte J T Forster 2nd Durham Light Infantry `A` Company
4444112 Pte M Crossen 2nd Durham Light Infantry Company not known
4448391 Pte J Forster 2nd Durham Light Infantry `A` Company
4449111 Pte H Hall 2nd Durham Light Infantry `HQ` Company
4447927 Pte A Laing 2nd Durham Light Infantry `B` Company
4444043 Pte J Mawson 2nd Durham Light Infantry `A` Company
4445726 Pte E Nottage 2nd Durham Light Infantry `HQ` Company
4449700 L/Cpl R Nelson 2nd Durham Light Infantry `A` Company
4449376 Pte S Satchwell 2nd Durham Light Infantry `A` Company
4445003 Pte S Stoker 2nd Durham Light Infantry `B` Company
3447737 Pte R Shaw 2nd Durham Light Infantry `B` Company
4442095 Pte R Taylor 2nd Durham Light Infantry `C` Company
4449628 Pte H Waterworth 2nd Durham Light Infantry `D` Company
4444040 Pte J Watson 2nd Durham Light Infantry `HQ` Company

From the list you can see that only three originate from `HQ` Company which was the company Anthony was originally with although with the confusion of battle and the fluid situation on the 27th May 1940 he could have been attached to any of them we just do not know for sure.
Best

Jim

[ivor43]

hi Jim.

no problem. If there is no date of capture, is there a date when wounded. if there was then it should be possible to work out where he was at the time, just a thought.

[Verrieres]

hi Jim.

no problem. If there is no date of capture, is there a date when wounded. if there was then it should be possible to work out where he was at the time, just a thought.

Hello Ivor,
The details of capture and wounds etc would be recorded on the returning PoW Questionaires at this point I do not have these (These questionaires also hold the initial question regarding any war crimes which would then be filled out on a `Form Q`) all I can say is the majority seem to have been paid at the last pay parade 11th-14th May Sorry.
Tony has now made contact with George Rodgers who succesfully found his brother Tom who was listed as missing in the same action as Anthony Corkhill so I think he intends to put the repatriation list on the back burner while he compares notes with George.
Tony was given an admission slip for a wounded DLI soldier from the 27th May 1940 on it there is a stamp/registration mark which reads

HOPITAL COMPLEMENTAIRE 31 Mai 1940 WESTMINSTER LE TOUQUET

Any significance or clues in this at all? Would all of the DLI wounded have been sent here and if so would this Hospitals records shed any light on the quest?

Best
Jim

[ivor43]

hi.
interesting post Jim. regard to the wounded soldier at Le Touquet i can probably give you a pretty good explanation. But first, if you don't mind a question for John.which should make it a bit clearer.
John. in one of your earlier posts you said that BGD HQ moved to Merville on 25th but in post 30 of my quote the entry for 1400 hr on 24th. it states '' O.C. reported to Bgd HQ and found it had moved to Merville without telling him.' I assume that this would have been the HQ at Calonne ?. so it must have moved sometime prior to then.
now Jim your wounded soldier. obviously he must have been wounded in the retreat from St Venant. he would either have been in the forest or possibly with BGD in Merville. the Hq moved from Merville to a location named as Rue Vert, somewhere in the forest and then i believe to L Touquet. John i think will confirm this. I suspect initially that his wounds may not have been too serious, unless he was hospitalized at Merville and then transported with Hq when they moved.
now with regard to the list of wounded. i think the date could be of some help, not a lot.
whilst i am not sure ,i think that shortly after 14th the units were engaged in the battle at the Dyle river/canal? .so i suspect a number of them would have been wounded there. they were pulled out on 20/21st ?and sent to St Venant/St Floris area arriving on 23rd where in the following battle the others must have been wounded.
as i said not a lot of help.

ivor

[Baconwallah]

Ivor, my information is that Bde HQ moved to Merville on the 25th. If the RE WD says otherwise, either of the two sources is mistaken. In view of the chaotic situation (witness the many wrong dates in the RWF WD) the discrepancy does not surprise me. Some time ago I looked at Churchill's trip to France at the height of the 1940 battle. Churchill himself, his aide, the captain of the destroyer and the senior French officer waiting to conduct him to Paris all give wildly different arrival times in their reports. It was like that.

Jim, there was a British Red Cross Hospital (No 1 Base Hospital, the Duchess of Westminter's) at le Touquet in the Great War. It may well have been resurrected in 1939. And hospitals were not evacuated during the retreat: too much work and nowhere to go. The walking wounded were told to make their own way to Dunkirk.

I've seen the admission slip. It lists the doctors (one of them German, unnamed) who examined the patient on the right hand side. Bottom left is the reason for admittance: maladie, sickness. Top right it says blessure de la cuisse sinistre, wound of the left thigh.

John

[ivor43]

hi all.
I agree, john, that the situation was total chaos. But i was a bit surprised that a field commander was not informed. but as you say it was like that. the wounded guy, as i said i suspect that the wound, although not initially serious, had, after 4 days or so become infected.
But my main concern at the moment is the report that Haverskirque was captured on 24th. allowing for possible day or so error in the dates then there is a definite possibility that when the RWF HQ staff tried to pull back they were heading straight towards the Germans so it is no wonder they took casualties. but while i agree that things were chaotic i can not understand why a HQ Co with radio comms were not informed. odd. The RWF.WD does not mention a change in the rv point.
Now John i would like your personal opinion of this. not what the book says, it may not even say anything, but Your take on this.please.



ivor

[Baconwallah]

Ivor, we've been there before. See previous posts. When 1st RWF was approaching St Floris, the Germans in Haverskerque were receiving orders to pull back to the Aire - la Bassée canal ("Hitler's Halt Order", although it was more likely von Rundstedt's order sanctioned by Hitler). So when St Venant fell, there were no Germans in Haverskerque, le Touquet or anywhere else north of the Lys canal. Don't know where you got that from.

When the Germans finally crossed the St Venant bridge at noon on the 27th, a small group of RWF armed with rifles and a Bren or two had to defend the cluster of cottages at the northern exit against an enemy with all mod cons - tanks, light artillery, the lot. As you say, no wonder they took casualties. But not because the enemy came from the north.

John