Dunkirk 27 May

On 27 May 1940 the evacuation from Dunkirk, which had started the day before, was well underway. Men of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, were stubbornly fighting a rear guard action and holding the village of Le Paradis and the neighbouring hamlets of Le-Cornet Malo and Riez-du-Vinage against overwhelmingly superior forces. Their intention was to try and block the enemy’s advance on Dunkirk. Finally, after delaying the enemy for as long as possible and inflicting heavy casualties, all of their ammunition was used up and they were completely cut off from their Battalion and Brigade HQ. Left with no chance of escape and no choice, 97 officers and men of Second Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment surrendered to No 4 Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head) Regiment. They were disarmed, marched into a field, mowed down by machine-guns, finished off by revolver shots and bayonet thrusts and left to rot. By some miracle, two men, Bill O’Callaghan and Bert Pooley, escaped death and hid in a pig-sty that belonged to Madame Duquenne-Creton. Madame Duquenne-Creton, at immense risk to herself, cared for and fed the 2 injured men for 3 days. Unfortunately, Bert, who had been wounded in the leg became increasingly ill and in the end, because his leg wounds were so severe the two men were forced to give themselves up and became prisoners of war. Bert was repatriated in 1943. When he returned home and told his story of the massacre no-one believed him and it was not until 1946 that he was able to return to Le Paradis, prove his story and set the wheels of justice in motion. On 28 Jan 1949, the German officer who ordered the massacre, Fritz Knoechein, who was married with four children, was hung by the neck until dead.