I have tried to recount the British counter-attack at Arras as accurately as possible, but it was complicated and the precise details are often contradictory. Although the British knew that the Germans were concentrating forces south of Arras and vice versa, neither Major- General Franklyn nor Major-General Rommel knew that the other was going to attack in precisely the same place. Thus, the 25th Panzer Regiment, Rommel's main tank unit in his 7th Panzer Division, had already thrust successfully north-west of Arras towards Acq by the time the two British columns were moving south. This was why German forces were spotted west and north-west of Maroeuil as they moved south; 25th Panzer hung around near Acq during most of the afternoon of 21 May, until Rommel ordered them south-east again at around seven p.m. so as to cut off the retreating British. This is why the 8th Durham Light Infantry, still in Duisans, and the accompanying artillery found themselves under renewed attack from the north-west that evening.
It is true that Rommel personally directed the German battery at Point 111. The guns were situated in an old quarry next to Belloy Farm, just north-west of the village of Wailly, and it is not only still there, but clear to see why they had positioned themselves in such an ideal spot. It is also true that Rommel's aide-de-camp, Oberleutnant Most, was killed while standing right next to him; also, Rommel, in his diary, expressed surprise as to how it had happened because he was not aware that the position was under direct attack - rather, the British tanks in front of them and on their right were aiming at the troops moving either side: the SS Totenkopf on their left and his artillery and 6th Rifle Regiment on his right.
Tragically, the massacre of the Royal Norfolks at Le Paradis also occurred much as described, although there was no Timpke egging Knochlein on to carry out such an appalling deed. There have been all sorts of suggestions as to why he ordered the executions. One - entirely unconfirmed, I hasten to add, and without any evidence at all - asserts that it was a revenge attack for the death of a number of Totenkopf prisoners at Arras. Two men survived and escaped, although wounded, and were later recaptured and spent the rest of the war in PoW camps. Afterwards, however, they revealed the truth of what had happened. Knochlein, who had survived the war, was tracked down, put on trial, found guilty and hanged.
One brief note about the weapons. Interestingly, an MP28 sub-machine-gun - almost identical to the Waffen- SS MP35 - was brought back from Dunkirk and handed over to the Admiralty. With the RAF, they decided to commission a new sub-machine-gun. The Lanchester, as it became known, was an almost like-for-like copy of the German model.
Had the French not lost their heads and panicked and instead dealt with the German attack logically and calmly, the Second World War would, no doubt, never have become a world war in the way that we think of it today and would very likely have been over that summer. Sadly, that did not happen. France was vanquished, and by the signing of the armistice on 22 June 1940, all of continental Europe, from the top of Norway in the Arctic Circle, all the way down to the southern tip of Spain, lay in Nazi or Fascist hands. Britain faced five more years of war and the men of the Yorkshire Rangers had many more battles to come. Jack Tanner and Stan Sykes were needed again all too soon.
Glossary
Choky - prison
CIGS - chief of the Imperial General Staff (head of the armed services)
croaker - badly wounded or dying
CQS - Company Quartermaster Sergeant
dekko - look around, observe
DLM - Division Legere Mechanique, i.e. a Light Armoured Division
GSO3 - General Staff Officer 3 - a British staff officer
HMG - His Majesty's Government
housewife - small standard-issue linen wallet containing needles, thread, spare buttons, darning wool and thimble
iggery - get on with it, move it
Irvin - thick sheepskin flying jacket made by the Irvin company for the RAF
IO - intelligence officer
Maggie - RAF slang for a Miles Magister aircraft
MO - medical officer
M/T - motor transport
O4 - German divisional general staff officer
OC - Officer Commanding
OCTU - Officer Cadet Training Unit
On the peg -under arrest
OP - observation post
ORs - other ranks (i.e. not commissioned officers)
poilus - old First World War name for French infantry
puggled - drunk
QA - Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service
RASC - Royal Army Service Corps
RTR - Royal Tank Regiment
R/T - radio transmitter
RV - rendezvous
sitrep - situation report
Spandau - German light machine-gun; in May 1940, most were MG34s, but British troops tended to call all such weapons 'Spandaus' after the location stamp marked on the German Maxim guns of the First World War
Snowdrops - RAF Military Police
Stonk – a sustained artillery barrage
vic – V-shaped formation of three aircraft, with the lead plane at the point of the ‘V’
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the following: Roger Baker, Oliver Barnham, Dr Peter Caddick-Adams, Clive Denney, Rob Dinsdale, Richard Dixon, Phil Harding, Professor Rick Hillum, Lalla Hitchings, Staff Sergeant Steve Hurst, Steve Lamonby, Peta Nightingale, Hazel Orme, Bill Scott-Kerr and all at Bantam, Lieutenant-Colonel John Starling, Jake Smith-Bosanquet, Patrick Walsh, Guy Walters, Major Steve White, Rachel, Ned and Daisy.