Читать книгу Engineering Hitler's Downfall - Gwilym Roberts - Страница 46

The disastrous first nine months of the war culminated in the heroic albeit desperate rescue of British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk at a time when early defeat stared Britain in the face. Within weeks of invading Denmark and Norway in April 1939, the Germans had invaded Holland, Belgium, and France with their new Blitzkrieg tactics – lightning-quick strikes with efficient communications so as to direct and coordinate its modern air force and mechanised army units. Attacking through Belgium and Holland, thus bypassing the Maginot Line, they achieved the overwhelming victory that led to the Dunkirk evacuation of more 300,000 British and French troops – and the French capitulation in June.

This was in fact the second humiliating evacuation within weeks, the inglorious Norwegian Campaign (April–June 1940) having ended with our defeated troops being picked up from central Norway in early May. Gordon Corrigan wrote: ‘If the history faculties at universities were to run a module on how not to conduct a military campaign … then they need look no farther than the Norwegian campaign of 1940, for as complete and utter cock-ups it would be difficult to better.’

During the retreat to Dunkirk the Royal Engineers (RE) demolished some 600 bridges, blew countless craters, and built improvised jetties on the beaches to facilitate the evacuation. The Light Aid Detachments of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (the predecessor to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME)) made valiant efforts to recover and repair damaged ordnance and vehicles, thereby enabling many items to reach the coast. Similarly, the Corps’ main workshop was successfully withdrawn to the coast by its commanding officer, Lieutenant John Nicholson RAOC, who was awarded the MC for achieving this with the minimum of losses. Sadly, they then all had to be destroyed or abandoned.

Improvised jetty made by RE from abandoned lorries photographed by the Germans. IWM

In the months prior to the retreat the British Army had built up its resources and equipment and generally prepared itself for the impending battle. Royal Signals, for instance, made use of the French civilian landline network with Army personnel working alongside local staff in their exchanges. Wireless telegraphy was regarded as a back-up to the landlines, the network being reinforced by the laying of additional dedicated lines where necessary.

The hard lessons learned during the disastrous Norwegian and French campaigns made it immediately apparent that the procedures envisaged pre-war would have to be drastically rethought and that new techniques would need to be developed and applied. Principal among these operations were the importance of airpower, tactical mobility, close inter-service cooperation, rapid decision-making – and the need for modern equipment.