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2.0 out of 5 stars
How Not To Commit a Brigade To Combat, February 27, 2001
This review is from: France : Calais (Battleground Europe) (Paperback)
This book is a battlefield guide that describes the desperate effort by the British to defend the port of Calais against the on-rushing German panzers in May 1940. On the plus side, the 123-page historical section on the battle itself has information that is not covered well in other books. Typically, the Battle for Calais gets a paragraph or two in most accounts and thus thin volume packs a considerable amount of unique information. The maps and photographs that support the text are also excellent. However, the account is marred by errors, omissions and lack of analysis.
The story of how Churchill committed the 30th Infantry Brigade to a "no retreat" defense of Calais in order to buy time for the evacuation of Dunkirk to proceed is certainly one of the less well-known chapters of the Second World War. The brigade arrived in Calais on 22 May 1940, composed of two regular infantry battalions, a territorial battalion, the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and a few small support units. Within less than 24 hours of arriving, the brigade was under attack by lead elements of the German 10th Panzer Division. This is a story of how not to commit a brigade into combat. Although the British brigade was a motorized unit, most of the vehicles did not arrive and thus the unit fought mostly as "leg" infantry. Many of the weapons suffered from defects or shortages, including the fact that many of the tanks were armed only with smoke ammunition. The brigade arrived with only eight 40mm antitank guns and no artillery or engineers, nor had the two regular battalions ever worked with the territorial or tank units before. Furthermore, the brigade was thrown into an intelligence void, its commander was told that they were sent to "mop up" a few Germans that had leaked through the front lines, not mount a desperate defense.
Jon Cooksey uses eye-witness accounts from the British side and diary accounts from the German side to paint the four-day Battle of Calais. The account makes for interesting reading but choppy history, particularly since the author is casual about time references. It is often difficult to tell when events are occurring in relation to each other and the author would have been better served to organize his chapters with greater chronological coherence. The author also seems to have trouble identifying German equipment; for example, a 75mm infantry howitzer on page 80 is described as "a mortar" and a Pz I tank on page 122 is labeled as a "Pz II".
However the most glaring error of this entire volume is the author's treatment of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (3RTR). Although this unit is described in detail in the initial fighting on 23 May, it disappears from this account for the remainder of the battle. The unit is last seen retiring into Calais to regroup after losing seven tanks in a skirmish with the 10th Panzer. Nothing more is said about the 3RTR or its men, but several photographs show abandoned British tanks in the town. What happened to the British armor? This is a crucial omission. Other oversights include only passing mention of participation in the battle by French troops, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the effects upon French civilians in Calais. Nor is there any mention of German casualties, although they were probably less than the author implies. The author also spends little effort to follow-up on the fates of key characters in the battle. It is stated that Brigadier General Nicholson, who led the defense, did not survive captivity but there is no explanation. Was he shot trying to escape or die of disease? Who knows? Certainly the author put greater effort into the 39-page section on battlefield tours than he did into tying up loose ends.
Finally, the author makes no effort at analysis whatsoever, but lamely claims that despite the sacrifice of the 30th Brigade, the valiant unit tied down the 10th Panzer for four vital days and thereby saved the Dunkirk evacuation. There is a long tradition in British history of glorifying military disasters and this is one of those cases. The idea that a pick-up team of 2,500 poorly-equipped troops could seriously delay the German offensive whereas over one million well-equipped Anglo-French troops on the front could not, is pretty ludicrous. The fact is that the port of Calais was already fairly isolated by the German spearheads before the 30th Brigade had even fully disembarked and that the British troops had been delivered into a tactical cul-de-sac. Cooksey fails to point out that the Germans were under no obligation to attack Calais immediately and that they could easily have bypassed the port. If the deprivation of the 10th Panzer Division was such a hardship to the Germans, then they could have broken off the attack and proceeded to Dunkirk. The British defenders at Calais, while gallant, served neither as a blocking force or to fix any sizeable German forces in place. Rather, the Germans had sufficient forces to leisurely "mop up" isolated strong points such as Calais, and Cooksey notes that they did not attack at night and did not start their major assault upon the city center until 12 noon on 25 May. The reality is that Churchill's no-retreat order at Calais served very little purpose other than to make the psychological point that British troops were capable of fighting it out instead of running. Yet the photos of dead British troops behind flimsy barricades in Calais pathetically demonstrates what happens when soldiers unaccustomed to the reality of war are taught brutal lessons about the cost of unpreparedness in combat. As one German officer told captured British soldiers, "you are very brave, but foolish".
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