#StValery80 Learning Activity Card Daily Activity Idea for Pupils / Homeschoolers 10+ FOUR MAJOR MILITARY PLAYERS OF ST VALERY WHO WERE THEY AND WHAT WAS THEIR ROLE IN THE BATTLE OF ST VALERY? WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874 – 1965) Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill Winston Churchill had served during the First World War as the commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. On 10th May 1940, he became the Prime Minister of Great Britain. “I felt…that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” 1 2 Over whelmed and exhaust Only 25 days later the British ed, the Allies retreated t Expeditionary Force (BEF), who had o the port of Dunkirk. been sent to help defend France at In a famous s at peech the time to the start of the war, found the House of Common themselves trapped by the German s, Churchill c D alled unkirk "a col army along the northern shores of ossal military disaster", France, together with the remains of stating: “the whole root the Belgian forces and three French and core and brain of the field armies. British Army" had been 3 stranded at Dunkirk and d Operation Dynamo seemed abo immediately launche to ut Churchill civilian- perish or be sels and all available captured. ordering all Navy ves s fishing boats, ‘small ships’ such a manned the lifeboats to made up pleasure yachts and 0 British, French, ust be very atilla. Around 350,00 "We m rescue flo the ere evacuated from to and Belgian troops w careful not Dunkirk beaches. ndoned assign to this 000 soldiers and aba The BEF had lost 68, nd equipment. In erance the 4 its tanks, vehicles, a deliv nearly all on 4 the beaches" speech f a is "we shall fight on attributes o h f the BEF as a ll hailed the rescue o June, Churchi e ory. Wars are but also reminded th vict acle of deliverance" "mir by country that: not won evacuations.” At 0900 hours on 12th June 5 1945 the French Army raised Churchill had a lso promised the the white flag. Out of time, On 4th June, the same day the French Govern ment that the Allies and options, the 51st remaining BEF forc BEF were being evacuated at es would fight Highland Division under the on, and it was that d Dunkirk, the 12,000 strong ecision which command of General Fortune sealed the fate of t 51st Highland Division were he 51st. were forced to surrender at St. 100 miles away and launching T Valery-en-Caux one hour later he only way out now would be their attack on the German to the 7th Armoured Division of through the ports of Dieppe and Wehrmacht (7th Panzer Army. St Valery-en-Caux, and it wa s Division). The commander of going to be tight to make this division was General Erwin This meant the 51st could not it there in time. Rommel. have been evacuated even if Th friday e officers and men of the 51st Churchill had ordered it. m ust have known their position 7 was hopeless, but they fought on gallantly. 6 VICTOR FORTUNE (1883 – 1949) Major-General Sir Victor Morven Fortune Victor Fortune saw service during the First World War. He commanded the 1st Battalion The Black Watch in 1916 and was mentioned in dispatches multiple times for ‘gallant and distinguished services in the field’. In 1919 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur. 1 2 After being split off from the rest In 1937 he took of the British Expeditionary command of the Force in May 1940, his division of 12 51st Highland m ,000 en was outn Division during the umbered and outgunne d against the Battle of France. Germans and forced to 3 retreat a m onth later t their backs. It With only the sea a to St. Valery. as no possibility was apparent there w men ation or support. The of evacu Shortly before and virtually out of were exhausted n the artillery 1000hrs o ammunition, with no 12th June 4 ammunition at all. General Fortune considered all the General Fortune took the most erattack; further options: a count ficult of own. dif tance, retaking the t resis decisions - to 7 surrender. 5 As the most senior He was finally liberated While surrender must have British officer in in April 1945 and felt terrible, he did so to try captivity in Germany, awarded a knighthood to save as many of his he worked to improve on 15th April the same men’s lives as he could. the conditions of the year "in recognition of men under valuable services in General Fortune was his comma the interests of British always spoken off very nd. When he Prisoners of War highly by all the soldiers suffered a stroke in 1944, he refused t in Germany". who served under him and friday o spent the rest of the war be sent back to with them as a prisoner of Great Britain. war. 6 ERWIN ROMMEL (1891 –1944) Erwin Eugen Johannes Rommel Popularly known as the ‘Desert Fox’, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel achieved a rare feat for any military commander - he became a legend in his own lifetime - and he remains the best known German general of the Second World War in the English speaking world. 1 2 Afterward He saw service during the s, he wrote a book ca lled ‘Infantry First World War and took part Atta cks’, which r in so many dangerous raids ecounted his extraordi nary feats of and reconnaissance missions bravery. His book caught that his men supposedly Hitler's a ttention, who joked, “Where Rommel is, gave him the command of his bodygu there is the front.” ard battalion dur 3 ing the Polish campaign o ickly given command f Rommel was qu 1939. r Division for of the new 7th Panze The e men in his on of France in 1940. All th the invasi d tion was command looke rapidity of this promo up to him, ut so was the young extraordinary, b him to the considering der's performance in 4 comman be an extremely rm of warfare known new, rapid fo brave leader, who rieg. as blitzk as they could see, always led from 7 the front. A failed assassination 5 attempt on Hitler in which Then in th e wake of the some considered Rommel to In February 1941, he was the obvious D-Day invasion, Allied choice to command the small have been complicit, left aircraft strafed (machi 'blocking force' sent by Hitler to Libya ne- Rommel with no choice but gun fire from low-flying to shore up Germany's failing Italian 'forced' suicide. aircraft) his ope ally, Benito Mussolini. n-topped car as it rode through As Rommel was a popular It was here, in North Africa, that his Normandy, France. true talents as a bold and daring general and to keep up commander of fast-moving armoured This caused it to somersault morale Nazi officials told the formations were properly revealed. off the road. When the du public he had died as a st cleared, R Rommel later, however, grew ommel was result of his recent car uncon disillusioned, believing that Germany sfrciidouasy, with multiple accident injuries. must negotiate with the Allies rather skull fractures and glass than fight to the bitter end. fragments in his face. The truth did not come out until after the war. 6 CHARLES DE GAULLE (1890 – 1970) Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany in World War II, and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to reestablish democracy in France. 1 2 In May 19 The gallantry and comradeship 40, De Gaulle was a g shown by the 51st Highland Division eneral in the French in the weeks leading up to the army fighting along Battle of St. Valery inspired Charles side the 51st High De Gaulle to fight on against the land Division during a fa Germans even after the dark days iled attempt to take of mid-1940 and the eventual the Abbeville bridgeh 3 surrender of France. ead from the Germans: Gaulle Edinburgh in 1942 De In a speech he made declares: the comradeship of y part, I can say that “For m le in battlefield of Abbevil arms, sealed on the h armoured 0, between the Frenc May-June 194 d nour to command, an n, which I had the ho divisio eneral tish Division under G the gallant 51st Scot 5 he decision which I e, played its part in t Fortun the e fight at the side of made to continue th This remarkable me what may.” Allies, to the end, co insight reveals the impact the fighting He also quoted the spirit of the 51st motto of the Highland Division French royal had on the future bodyguard, the Garde creation of the Free French Army Ecossaise: “omni and the shaping of modo fidelis” – post-war Western faithful in every w ay. Europe. 4.