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The Royal Scots (The
Royal Regiment)
Defence of the La Bassée Canal Line
25th-27th May
1940,
Remembered by the
late Major Jimmy Howe MBE
Major
Jimmy Howe MBE at
Le Paradis War Cemetery
Extract from
"A Conductor's Journey"
"The “phoney war” came to an end on 10th May 1940, when many
planes passed over Lecelles. After having spent so much time
building fortifications, we were told we had to embus at noon
and cross the Belgian border, move to Wavre, South of Brussels
and await the Germans there. As I was in the HQ Company, I was
given a position in a house near Wavre railway station with
another bandsman, and although we were stretcher bearers and
supposedly protected by the Geneva Convention we were armed with
rifles. We settled into the house, and next morning we were
visited by our Company Commander and Company Sergeant Major who
told us that the Germans were expected soon and that we had to
open fire when they cane into view. I don't know whether or not
they expected us two bandsmen to hold back the German Army,
however, they had no sooner left us when German aircraft passed
over dropping bombs aimed at the railway station, which missed,
but destroyed a house opposite our position and wounded the
Company Commander and Company Sergeant Major who had just left
us. After four days at Wavre, the Battalion was ordered to
withdraw after suffering its first casualties. We marched
through the night, and I was so exhausted that every time we
stopped for a rest I was scared to close my eyes in case I fell
asleep and got left behind at the roadside.
Our next meeting with the enemy was at Calonne at the River
Escaut, and here we suffered heavy casualties. The Regimental
Aid Post was set up in a large cave in the side of a hill and
wounded soldiers were being brought in by the dozen. The MO and
the Padre worked hard, some of the wounds were most severe and I
could only assist by passing dressings over and trying to make
the soldiers comfortable. It was quite traumatic to see some of
my colleagues from the band among the wounded. A first class
violinist was one of these with a particularly severe head wound
and it was very distressing to realise that he would never make
music again. The MO sent two of us out of the cave with the
stretcher to pick up several soldiers in a wood nearby, and it
was here that I had my first experience of being under mortar
shell fire. It was terrifying, the shells would burst with a
loud crack and it was no good trying to shelter in ditches, as
the missile burst in the air and shrapnel would rain down. I
soon learned that the only way to escape danger was to dive
beneath any vehicle that might be near. Orders came that we
were to retire from this position and some RASC trucks managed
to get to us. Dusk was falling, but as we drove away I saw some
soldiers from a British regiment sitting by a ditch by the side
of the road. I thought that they must be taking over our
positions, but they were all dead and we had to leave them
hurriedly, without any dignity of burial.
On May 25th, we arrived at the village of Le Paradis, near
Bethune, and it turned out to be anything but “paradise”! The
Regimental Aid Post was set up in a small house, the villagers
had vacated the place, fearing the advancing Germans who soon
caught up with us and began attacking our positions. A message
came to the MO that there was a severely wounded soldier in the
village church about half a mile away, and he told me to go with
the medical truck and see what I could do for him. The area was
being shelled, but the truck driver managed to get to the porch,
where I found the soldier had been left lying on a stretcher
with his body severely mutilated. It appeared to me that he had
been hit with a mortar shell, and I could see that his life was
ebbing away. I made him as comfortable as possible, returned to
the truck as there was nothing else I could do, and the driver
took me back to the Regimental Aid Post. The church at Le
Paradis still bears the scars of shelling to this day. The
Germans were by now swarming around the area. I was wearing a
Red Cross armband and had a haversack of surgical dressings
displaying a Red Cross slung over my shoulder. In retrospect I
feel sure it was this sign of the Geneva Convention that
prevented the German troops shooting at me as I made the
terrifying journey back to the RAP sitting in the back of the
medical truck.
I reported to MO Captain Percy Barker who was tending several
wounded men, when our band Sergeant said he could see some
French troops coming near the house. They were in fact Germans,
and were attacking with automatic weapons. The next thing I saw
was a German soldier outside our window and his arm going back
to throw a stick grenade which flew past my head and exploded at
the back of the room, killing some of the wounded. There were
guttural shouts of "Come out, Tommy! Hande hoch", and as the
building was now on fire, we had no option but to get out with
our hands up. The Germans screamed at us, tearing off our
equipment. We were then lined up, and used as a screen from the
fire of our comrades further down the road who were carrying on
the battle. There was a Bren machine gun vehicle nearby, and
half a dozen of us crouched behind it. I was next to the Padre,
who at this point was wounded in the thigh from what was British
rifle fire coming from a barn some distance away. I put my hand
down to get a dressing for his wound, at which a German pointed
a revolver, and screamed at me to get my hands back over my
head. The Germans meanwhile began taking cover in the
surrounding ditches. I saw how well armed they were, with Sten
guns, a weapon we had never seen before, stick grenades and
automatic spandau machine guns. I saw one young German soldier
with a machine gun lie in the middle of the road without any
cover to fire on troops in our HQ when he was hit by Bren gun
bullets from Pipe Major Allan's platoon one hundred yards away.
The German was killed instantly a short distance from me. I
have often since thought how well disciplined the Germans were,
that they did not take revenge on us newly captured prisoners
who were sheltering behind the Bren gun carrier. The shooting
died down, and the MO, the Padre, Band Sergeant and myself were
taken behind what was left of the RAP, to be questioned by a
German Officer.
That officer was dressed in a black uniform with a skull and
crossbones badge in his peaked cap. We later learned that these
men were part of the SS Totenkopf Division, they had fought in
Poland, swept through Belgium and France and their morale was
high. Of the four of us, the SS Officer, who was wearing a
white silk scarf around his neck, chose a junior to interrogate,
who was myself. He asked me the whereabouts of our Battalion HQ
which I didn't know anyway. One of his men told him that the
house they had just taken was the Regimental Aid Post. When he
saw the surgical implements and wounded men inside, the officer
said that had we been displaying a Red Cross sign on the
building they would not have attacked it. We must have been
very lucky as we learned after the war that another Battalion of
the same SS Totenkopf Regiment had lined up 99 British soldiers
only a mile away, and mown them down with machine guns, killing
99% of them, mostly from the Royal Norfolk Regiment. The German
Officer responsible for this murder was traced and brought to
justice in 1949. The full story of the massacre is told in the
book
“The
Vengeance of Private Pooley”."
In 1996, Les
Back (Professor
of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London), interviewed
Jimmy,
An interview with Major James Howe - Sound and vision blog
A broadcast of Dance Music by Jimmy's Dance Orchestra from
Stalag 8B on repatriation in 1943 with wounded Prisoners of War.
Stalag Band by cherryred335 | Free Listening on SoundCloud
Corporal
Billy Bell's Experience
In June
2010, after reading the above,
Mick Bell got in touch to
advise that his late father, Corporal Billy Bell, also known as
"Dingle", was a boyhood friend of Jimmy Howe
in County Durham and, like him, joined The Royal Scots in 1937.
Like Jimmy, his father was a musician and played alto saxophone
alongside him in the 1st Battalion's band . They served together
and were captured together at Le Paradis. Jimmy went to a camp
in Germany and was repatriated as an escort to severely wounded
prisoners in about 1942, but his fatherstayed in Stalag XXA at
Torun, Poland until 1945. During his term of imprisonment he
worked mainly on farms and was a member of the camp concert
party. In early 1945 the prisoners were forced to march
westwards to escape the advancing Russian army (the infamous
Death March) – his father, along with a couple of others escaped
and hid out until the Russians came (he described seeing waves
of Cossacks on horseback charging towards them). At first, he
feared being shot, as the Russians thought that he and the
others were Italian troops, but he convinced them that they were
British. He was sent back through Russia on a tortuous journey,
which culminated in Odessa, on the Black Sea, from where a troop
ship returned them to the UK.
He went on to serve until 1948, and remained close friends with
Jimmy until his death. He and his wife stayed regularly with
Jimmy and Avis, attending many of the annual concerts Jimmy
organised at Croydon and visiting him when the Scots Guards were
on ceremonial at Edinburgh Castle
Mick took his father back to Le Paradis on one occasion in
around 1987/8 and he was truly overcome. As he walked along the
lines of graves, he remarked “I carried him in”, "I buried
him”, "I treated him".
While they were in the area, they visited another bandsman,
Ginger Patchett, who escaped after being captured in 1940.
Ginger went back to the village where the battalion had been
stationed during the “Phoney War”, moved into the home the
French girlfriend he had acquired at the time and stayed there
until the area was liberated in 1944.
After the war he was when being debriefed by a British officer
in Brussels he was asked why he did not join the Resistance?
Ginger’s reply was that the Resistance did not have a space for
a ginger-haired Cockney trumpet player. After being discharged
he retuned to France, married his girlfriend and lived in Lille
until his death.
Memorial to Major Rodney Watson DSO MC RS
Le Paradis
Details
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Maps, positions, locations and
contemporary photos.
Links to The Royal
Norfolk Regiment's experience at Le Paradis:
Rolls of Honour Overseas - Le Paradis - France
Le Paradis 27 May 1940
BBC Website: WW2 The People's War
Wormhoudt Massacre, 28th May 1940
Also unknown to Jimmy at the time, a massacre of approximately
80 men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment
and The Royal Artillery took place three days later at
Wormhoudt by another SS Regiment.
YouTube - Dunkerque & The Wormhoudt Massacre
Le Paradis May
2006
Le Paradis War
Cemetery 21st May 2006 ©
Alan Howe
Major Jimmy Howe MBE's ashes were laid to rest in Le Paradis War
Cemetery, close to the Cross, in accordance with his wishes,
during the2006 annual
Service of Remembrance.
Jimmy made a pilgrimage every year to Le Paradis to remember his
fallen comrades, and played the Last Post on the cornet
well into his 80s.
He died on 16th March 2005, aged 87.
75th
Commemoration 2015
Further
references:
MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS - HELL IN PARADISE - Hell in Paradise -
Massacre at Le Paradis
Point du Jour International | GHOSTS OF 'PARADIS'
(The), Hélène CHAUVIN
La Voix du Nord: Lestrem "Les Fantômes de Paradis"
L’histoire du massacre de Paradis reste ancrée dans les mémoires
- La Voix du Nord (2017)
Pictanovo, la communauté de l'image en Nord-Pas de Calais
Bob Brown - Le Paradis Dunkirk 1940 Royal Norfolk Regiment -
YouTube
75eme COMMEMORATION DU MASSACRE DE PARADIS A LESTREM - YouTube
Lestrem : Les fantômes de Paradis, un documentaire diffusé sur
France 3 - La Voix du Nord
May 2016
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March to the
Church |
Service at the
site of the Massacre |
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Laying a
wreath at the site of the Massacre |
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May 2017
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The Royal
Scots
(The Royal Regiment)
Association |
Ceremony at
the site of the Massacre of The Royal Norfolks |
Wreath Laying |
Dennis
O'Callaghan son of Massacre Survivor Bill O'Callaghan and
Ralston Ryder son of Major Ryder, acting CO of The Royal
Norfolks |
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L'Harmonie de
Lestrem, leading the March to the Church |
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Halted at the
Church |
Royal British
Legion and Notre Dame de Lorette Colour Party |
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Ceremony at
the Church |
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Memorial at
the Church |
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Ceremony at
CWGC War Cemetery |
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Memorial in
the Church to The Royal Scots who defended Le Paradis and
Brigadier Charles Ritchie CBE |
May 2018
 Le
Paradis 2018
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The Royal
Scots |
Commemoration
at Le Creton Farm |
The site of
the Massacre |
The Harmonie
de Lestrem leads the Parade from the Farm to the Church |
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Wreaths Laid
at the Church |
Le Paradis
Cemetery |
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Wreaths laid
at the Cemetery |
Three
Generations at the Church Memorial |
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The Micro
Museum |
Opening of the
Micro Museum |
Next to
Paradis Church |
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The Royal
Scots
1939 St Andrews Dinner Quaich |
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May 2020
80th Anniversary of The
Royal Scots Defence of the Dunkirk Perimeter: The Battle of Le
Paradis
2020 was the 80th
Anniversary of the Battle of Le Paradis where The Royals Scots
and The Royal Norfolks,
ordered to hold the canal line to the last round and the last
man, to protect the BEF's corridor to Dunkirk did just that.
Due to the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic a decision was taken to
cancel the Association’s official participation with Lestrem
Commune in the Commemoration. The Royal Norfolk Association and 1
Royal Anglian also cancelled.
Last year the
Ville de Lestrem live streamed a scaled down commemoration which
was live-streamed on their Facebook page. The Maire,
Jaques Hurlus
and 1er Adjoint, Philippe Brouteele, led the Commemoration with British Forces
represented by Colonel Andy McDowall, late RS.RS373, The Team tasked with recording memories of
the Regiment of the 20th and 20th Centuries of the Regiment's
373 uninterrupted years of service until the merger of all the
Scottish Regiments in 2006 hosted an online Commemoration of the
80th Anniversary on Tuesday 26th May 2020.
May 2021
The continuing impact of the Pandemic has again
prevented a public commemoration. Lestrem Commune have
organised a limited Commemoration where we will be represented
by Elected Officials and Veterans. It will be live
streamed on the Commune's
Facebook page at 1200 (French Time) on Saturday 29th May
2021.
May 2022
Return to Le Paradis - 82nd Anniversary and Last Organised Visit
What Le Paradis is all about for us is enduring friendship
combined with sacrifice. It started in 1940 on 26th May at
Calonne-sur-Lys where The Royal Scots were in Brigade Reserve.
“The Royal Norfolks, those old and firm friends of The Royal
Scots, had gone forward to the La Bassée Canal four miles to the
south and there was word of heavy fighting.” (Augustus Muir, The
First of Foot: With the B.E.F. In France 1939-40). When news
arrived of an Enemy Patrol across the Canal The Royal Scots
moved up taking prisoners and began moving into the positions
they would hold the next day until out of ammunition. Friendship
with the people of Paradis began in the days after the Battle
when they returned and buried our dead who they found in and
around their shattered homes. The Pipes and Drums are rightly
known for their stirring music but are primarily infantry
soldiers and provide defence for Battalion Heaquarters. In 1940
Pipe Major Allan and his platoon died in that task at the
Battalion Headquarters in Rue de Derrière outside the home of
the Delassus Family. The Delassus Family on return buried The
Royal Scots fallen and defied the Germans by guarding the grave
whenever they passed a high risk during occupation until
reinterment in 1942. Grandson Christian Delassus is a member of
the Harmonie de Lestrem which played on Saturday. Friendship
continued in Paradis when the Commemorations began and among the
first to attend was Major Jimmy Howe, a Bandsman with The Royal
Scots in 1940, later a Director of Music. The Harmonie de
Lestrem plays arrangements composed by Major Howe including
“Pentland Hills”. Jimmy attended and played The Last Post
beautifully on his Cornet into his ‘80s, shortly before his
death.
The French Army Liaison Officer with The Royal Scots in 1939 and
1940 and a Prisoner of War with them until 1945 was Captain
Michel Martell of the famous Cognac family. His grandson Thierry
Firino Martell joined us at lthe Church. He arranged for a
special bottle of Martell to be delivered to our one surviving
veteran, Major John Errington, 103 years of age who was greatly
cheered to be reminded of his WWII comrade. (John died on 29th
August 2022 shortly after marking his
104th Birthday).
Of course individuals will still visit Paradis and its
Memorials. This year we wanted to continue to thank our friends
in Paradis and Lestrem Commune for their many years of
friendship and devotion to the memories of 1940 and hospitality
for us since and presented a David Ogilvie Wrought Iron Bench
with silhouettes of the 1940 Royal Scots, Poppies, Bleuets, our
Cap Badge (St Andrew) , our Motto “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit” and
a message of Dedication that will stay in the Commune.
Our Party was as usual accompanied by our Piper and this
year by our Standard Party.
We remember Le Paradis for the success of the action by The
Royal Scots and Royal Norfolks in 4 Brigade. The Order “Stand
and Fight to the Last Round and the Last Man” was given only
twice in WWII, in May 1940, to delay the German Advance into the
corridor that was to be held for the Dunkirk Evacuation. It was
given again at Kohima in India in 1944 to stop the Japanese
Advance. On both occasions the Regiments given that order did
just that. The reformed 1st Battalion The Royal Scots and the
2nd Battalion The Royal Norfolks served together in 4 Brigade
again at Kohima relieving the defending force and continuing and
winning the Battle.
Lestrem Commune FB Le Paradis 2022
This page is dedicated to
the memory of
Major Jimmy Howe MBE
"At the going
down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."
"Nous nous
souviendrons d'eux"
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