The Men They Left Behind by Sean Longden
Constable, £20
IT’S the sparsity of medal ribbons that marks out one special contingent of World War II veterans. Taken prisoner in battles on continental soil in 1940 they spent five years behind the wire in prisoner of war camps – Oflags incarcerating the officers, Stalags the other ranks – spread across the Third Reich. For them the war was truly over before, it seemed, it had properly begun.
Survivors of Dunkirk, the rearguard which fought to enable the evacuation of more than 300,000 British and Allied troops, fell into German hands during that momentous battle. To the 40,000 who never made it home from the beaches must be added thousands of comrades like the men of the 51st Highland Division trapped at St Valery-en-Caux by Rommel’s Panzers and scores of other bloody engagements to try and slow the enemy’s march. Rearguard actions are always very hazardous and the outcome for survivors pretty predictable.
The Dunkirk drama – the evacuation of much of the British Expeditionary Force – lasted about a week but the “Dunkirk spirit” was invoked at critical periods throughout the Second World War. A military disaster was turned into a morale boosting victory – bloody defeat in northern France into a strategic withdrawal – which lightened the gloom. But the story of those left behind needed telling.
As the smoke of war cleared, leaving the Wehrmacht triumphant, the PoWs, many injured and all of them exhausted, were gathered up to make the long march into Germany. Those with experience of war know that, mostly, front line troops behave more correctly than rear echelons. SS units perpetrated massacres of defeated British soldiers at Le Paradis and Wormhoudt.
Ill-clothed and infrequently fed, the march to captivity was punctuated by casual brutality and summary execution. Once there, camp life was stultifying. Red Cross parcels and spasmodic letters from home offered some relief. The British Army estimated that three in ten long-term prisoners were psychologically unfit for service when released from captivity. This reviewer vividly recalls the troubles endured by his elder brother who escaped from a PoW camp in Italy in 1943. He soldiered on, became second in command of an infantry battalion but died before his time. Little help was, and is, afforded veterans of the Second World War.
Longden tells how some individuals and groups evaded capture. Some made their way across France and over the Pyrenees to Gibraltar. Others aimed for neutral Switzerland and Sweden. The sun inevitably sets on those who engaged in a legal war and a just cause. They mortgaged their time, health and futures for the greater good. The PoWs may lack the medals worn by a contracting number of comrades, but the sacrifices by that band of brothers was immense and we should not forget it.
Tony Heath
