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By Lt (E) Harry Jenkins, RCN
Dear Editor:
Although it is many years since 1940 when the Canadian First Division attempted to join with the French to stop the German army before it reached Paris, I would be most interested to meet or contact any survivors of that action.
On June 13, 1940 I witnessed the Canadians embark for France in the Ville d’Angier. At the dockside, I was amazed to witness a French boat unloading strawberries, just ahead of the troop ship. It was too much for the soldiers, seeing those crates of fruit at their feet. So they soon lowered lines and hauled a few aboard the troop ship, ignoring the objections of the MPs. All this to the accompaniment of the Royal Marine Band conducted by Major Ricketts, the composer of “Colonel Bogey” and other marches.
After some few hours delay due to the ship’s captain’s objections, the ship sailed across the Channel to Brest, from where the Canadians quickly made their way inland, intending to join up with the French. However, on the following day after the Germans had entered Paris, the Canadians were ordered by the British to leave their guns and return to England. But the Canadians, ignoring the order, returned with the same number of guns they had brought to France.
Some years later in Halifax, I talked to Major General Rothschild who, as a junior officer had been with the Canadians in France. He said it was not quite true about all the guns being returned. In fact they had lost one, but did find a British gun. Some time later, the British learned of this and demanded the gun be returned to them.
Of course, the Canadians at first refused, but as the demand became more serious, the gun was eventually returned. This was probably the only British field gun to be brought out of France at that time. Perhaps it was mounted as a memorial.
I cannot recall the ship in which the Canadians returned to Plymouth, but I believe it was a cross-Channel paddle steamer that had the capacity of about half of what the Canadians loaded.
There was no doubt that the soldiers on landing were exhausted. Many just collapsed on the dockside, sleeping against the warehouse walls. Some wrote letters, three of which I mailed for them. After about an hour or so, busses arrived to take the soldiers away; presumably to the army barracks on the outskirts of the city.
Sincerely,
Harry Jenkins
The unit involved was the 1st Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery under command of Lt-Col J.H. Roberts (later MGen at Dieppe). Early June 1940, as the Dunkirk evacuation began, Britain and France hastily agreed to a defensive redoubt in the Brittany peninsula as a toe-hold on the continent. The 1st Canadian Division and a British infantry division, both in England, were deployed forthwith through Brest to hold the peninsula.
In the scramble, the 1st Field Regiment RCHA was first across the Channel with 24 gleaming new 25-pdr guns and found itself the vanguard for 1st Cdn Division, near Le Mans. The next day (15 Jun) all units were ordered reversed on Brest, as the Germans were entering Paris.
The brigade transport officer delivered the early-morning message to the 1st RCHA to return to Brest immediately. Not being recognized by the first officers awakened, concern was immediate that the “transport officer” was some Fifth Columnist again, until Lt (later Maj-Gen) ‘Baron’ Rothschild said he recognized the officer. On arrival at Brest two days later, the guns were loaded aboard the Bellerophon while all the vehicles were destroyed (without fire, small arms or explosives) due to lack of shipping.
The ship sailed with 1st Regiment’s full complement of 24 guns. Back in England, it was learned that one of its 24 guns had been damaged in an accident enroute from Brest and left there. However, at the docks, the CO, Ham Roberts, spotted an 18/25-pdr gun on the dock and it quickly became the RCHA’s 24th gun loaded aboard their ship.
A postscript to the tale was added that autumn when a plaintive letter was received at 1st Division’s HQ RCA from the CO of a British field regiment seeking the return of his gun that was so kindly returned to Britain by the Canadians. In reply, Ham Roberts, now a brigadier commanding HQ RCA, wrote that 1st Field Regiment had gone to France with 24 guns and brought their 24 guns back. Unfortunately, he said, the officer who was then the CO is no longer in command. – The Editor.
See: RCHA - Right Of The Line - 1986 by G.D. (Duff) Mitchell
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