TNA ADM 234 360

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CHAP. VIII
THE EVACUATION FROM DUNKIRK
Headquarters
and
the
various
was venience, French Messages as employment except best done station by they because taken for despatch of transmission could at semaphore. by the the hand riders, with Bastion coding down the to for Beach of or, Dover help the messages the parties, for pier parties distances of the by for sake nor W/T between of were greater too one great party and cars. con- the
lished was a French, laborious Reception a very by and 2300 business slow decoding on on the business. that naval which the day, type W/T first but necessitated of set code owing which (the to sent arrived the Anglo a through the French Statim French) the the Frestroyers Station by destroversion in use message at that estab- This date into was
munication mission broke was down not established with the Dover defective transmitter.ful defective transmitter.ful com-
of sand in the generator. altogether on evening of 1st June, probably on account
On the 1st June the Royal Corps of Signals established a W/T station in
lorry by the Bastion, as well as telephone communication between the Bastion a
and the Headquarters Signal Station. The intense bombing and shelling by
the Germans that day severed the line more than once.
In view of the possibility of the arrival of enemy forces on the 2nd June all
signal forms and records were destroyed on that day.
British Sector to be held till midnight 1st/2nd June
Meanwhile, on taking over command of the 1st Corps, Major General
Alexander proceeded to Dunkirk to interview Admiral Abrial who informed him
that he intended to hold the perimeter till all the troops were embarked. A
French Corps on the right was to hold the sector from Gravelines to Bergues
(though Gravelines had not apparently been in French hands for some days)
and a mixed French and British Corps under command of Major General
Alexander was to hold a line from Bergues to Les Moeres and thence to the sea¹.
that in his view this plan did not take account of the true naval and condition
Major General Alexander at once told the Admiral and General military Fagalde
situation of the was now such that prolonged resistance was out of the the question, night of
which serious and deteriorating rapidly. The fighting
troops was front could not in his opinion be maintained after beach and
and the present furthermore, the line to be held was so close to the by short
to 1st/2nd Dunkirk June ; that the enemy might soon stop all further evacuation
range War, Major and General received Alexander a reply that gave the the British same French force opinion troops should to being the be Secretary withdrawn embarked Abrial of as State in rapidly equal and for
artillery fire¹.
as possible from on a that basis time of British onward. and This he showed to Admiral allotted to him till
numbers midnight General Fagalde, 1st/2nd stating June, and that then he would withdraw hold under the sector cover of darkness, which
they agreed was the only plan feasible¹.
Cyclone damaged
Day and night our by patrols torpedo were maintaining subjected their to E-boat vigil attacks. northward, but the on
this
day
two
French
destroyers
were
I Appendix to Lord Gort's Second Despatch.
68