"It was finally just The Skipper, his family and us waiting for the following day and what might come with it. I think The Skipper was rather glad to have us as company. The barge was our second home now. Without the other people around we were feeling lost and were in the depth of the hold and checking our luggage. We climbed back onto the deck and we indulged in a quiet talk, the calm waters gently lapping against the sides of the bulk of the flat nose of the boat, making us dwell on our own bewildered thinking.
Suddenly, as in a nightmarish dream and in magnitude only to be compared with the spectacle of Hyronimus, Bosch's reknown painting of infamity @ death's allergory. Now a display of the most unlikely planes in history passed us by on different highs and low altitudes, hardly flying more like fluttering along in the sky, southward bound. "The fly-past of decadence and corruption"...
This was the French Air Force in all strength. It was more like an apparition or maybe a mirage. No, indeed shaking our heads in disbelief it was for real! Where was the Luftwaffe to catch the kites with a big net? Depressed we went to our bunks, there was no more hope for anything. "The Flight of Incompetance," I called it.
Gloom and despair overcame us. Suddenly, we heard that the Belgian King was the likely culprit and by preference his "Flemish People", a remark well taken, after all weren't we considered to be "Boches du Nord". What were we supposed to do now, turn chicken like them ...
Now we knew too definitely where the road lay, straight back home, with the lions. Meanwhile, The B.E.F. were busy trying to cut off the beaches ... in a tactical retreat. Blowing up a bridge up full with refugees, without any Germans being anywhere near. Considering, British stiff upper lip policy, they seemed just as panicky under strain as the rest of humanity.
Little did they know that Hitler had let them leave the beaches with their little boats so that they could tell how he had beaten them. This was said to be to the full amazement of Hitler's generals who already had their guns in place for the final assault and encirclement. The planes only kept pinpricking them, most of the bombs getting muffled in the sand.
The straffing was the worst on the long columns standing or wading in queues like sitting ducks. Surely the whole Luftwaffe was not used on these points otherwise it would have been a total massacre. Hitler seemed to have a knack for doing things that way, which eventually made him our best lunatic at large and for the Germans their worst enemy.
We now had to find a way to cope with the situation we found ourselves in ...
In the early morning we explored the other bank where there were high, thick trees that gave some protection from the air. The Skipper helped us to take our cases to the side in his little boat, รค skipperschiuite and tears in our eyes,we said farewell to the nice fellow and waved goodbye to the family. Before we left my father warned the skipper that he should not stay on the boat!
We had just placed our cases down when a dogfight started above us. Planes diving after each other, the big bullets cascading and ricocheting amongst us, we kept the trees between them and us as a shield. Our yellow blankets were on again, ideal targets, looking like French soldiers.
We had not gone two paces further after the dogfight when suddenly as from nowhere but really from the direction of St. Omaire appeared a low flying spotter plane above the treetops. It was clearly visible to us the instant we looked up, grey green fuselage with black crosses on the wings and the red swastika at an angle on the rudder. Well there we were, right in it, it couldn't have been more plain.
More refugees coming in haste and hysterical panic with grim stories of shootings, bayoneting and with tales of victims hanging on barbed wire fences hacked to pieces. The only thing left for us to do was to make for the open fields in front of us. If we kept to the road, following the canal, the troopers would be after us quicker - as there was no resistance anywhere.
With a ditch between us we now tried to get as much distance, in the shortest possible time between the last point near the barge and the length of the field, We had just covered a couple of kilometeres when we heard the short, sharp, speedy droning of two low flying Dorniers coming from the direction of St. Omair. They were skimming the canal between the lane of trees and the place where we had left the barge, ... it went up in broken and splintered planks, boards flying in all directions.!!!!!We hoped the skipper had heeded the warning for him and his family. There was no time to turn back or wonder what could have been done as suddenly we came under fire ...
The German Artillery had us in its sights and shells began falling short of us only twenty yards away. Before we could hear more of the distant deep sounding bangs of the guns and the whistling shells following us we quickly dove into the ditch. Then at a rapid pace, we then continued to follow the ditch until we were safely behind a big farm wall. No doubt, they had taken us for soldiers and once out of sight they had lost us and didn't waste any more ammunition. How close it had been!
A toothless old crow appeared before the old farmstead mumbling, it was an English exercise and not to worry about it! The old lady looked more like a witch and we thought should have looked better in her crystal ball!We left her where she stood as we all turned around and saw a few more craters opening up on her land... The old lady went back inside in some doubt!
As we didn't fancy being stuck there we hurried along until we reached the bend in the winding,curving road facing the other way again taking our steps north again, coming to another canal behind a little village called Bergues, derived from the Flemish Bergen for mountains, more like little hills, as that is what they appeared to be.
A British platoon was busy behind Bergues working to enlarge the canal and digging their trenches very close to the bridge. They were all nice chaps, we all had the same adverse thoughts after what we had experienced before arriving in Bergues which was tell the chaps not to go over the bridge with The Hun so near! So we started a nice conversation, calmly telling what we had seen with the Germans on the back of us, too close for comfort, from where we had come.
A scout was sent straight away on a motor bike in that direction and it didn't take long for him to return and verify the statement. The only course left for them was to leave the trenches and retreat swiftly before being cut off. We hoped for their success in a tactical retreat as it came so often to be called.
As the platoon was soon out of sight we continued our march towards Hondschote and the border where we crossed into Belgium - we felt just like victorious warriors from the, "The Battle of the Golden Spurs". We were so glad to back on home ground.
We had been insulted, not given bread or water anymore since those silly remarks by irresponsible statesmen, even by our distance cousins in those territories that were French now.
At that moment, we couldn't forgive any of them either! The hurt had cut too deep; cowardice and subservance were not our weaknesses at any time: lest we forget. Once wrongly challenged our wrath would have to be reckoned with...".
To be continued ....
Suddenly, as in a nightmarish dream and in magnitude only to be compared with the spectacle of Hyronimus, Bosch's reknown painting of infamity @ death's allergory. Now a display of the most unlikely planes in history passed us by on different highs and low altitudes, hardly flying more like fluttering along in the sky, southward bound. "The fly-past of decadence and corruption"...
This was the French Air Force in all strength. It was more like an apparition or maybe a mirage. No, indeed shaking our heads in disbelief it was for real! Where was the Luftwaffe to catch the kites with a big net? Depressed we went to our bunks, there was no more hope for anything. "The Flight of Incompetance," I called it.
Gloom and despair overcame us. Suddenly, we heard that the Belgian King was the likely culprit and by preference his "Flemish People", a remark well taken, after all weren't we considered to be "Boches du Nord". What were we supposed to do now, turn chicken like them ...
Now we knew too definitely where the road lay, straight back home, with the lions. Meanwhile, The B.E.F. were busy trying to cut off the beaches ... in a tactical retreat. Blowing up a bridge up full with refugees, without any Germans being anywhere near. Considering, British stiff upper lip policy, they seemed just as panicky under strain as the rest of humanity.
Little did they know that Hitler had let them leave the beaches with their little boats so that they could tell how he had beaten them. This was said to be to the full amazement of Hitler's generals who already had their guns in place for the final assault and encirclement. The planes only kept pinpricking them, most of the bombs getting muffled in the sand.
The straffing was the worst on the long columns standing or wading in queues like sitting ducks. Surely the whole Luftwaffe was not used on these points otherwise it would have been a total massacre. Hitler seemed to have a knack for doing things that way, which eventually made him our best lunatic at large and for the Germans their worst enemy.
We now had to find a way to cope with the situation we found ourselves in ...
In the early morning we explored the other bank where there were high, thick trees that gave some protection from the air. The Skipper helped us to take our cases to the side in his little boat, รค skipperschiuite and tears in our eyes,we said farewell to the nice fellow and waved goodbye to the family. Before we left my father warned the skipper that he should not stay on the boat!
We had just placed our cases down when a dogfight started above us. Planes diving after each other, the big bullets cascading and ricocheting amongst us, we kept the trees between them and us as a shield. Our yellow blankets were on again, ideal targets, looking like French soldiers.
We had not gone two paces further after the dogfight when suddenly as from nowhere but really from the direction of St. Omaire appeared a low flying spotter plane above the treetops. It was clearly visible to us the instant we looked up, grey green fuselage with black crosses on the wings and the red swastika at an angle on the rudder. Well there we were, right in it, it couldn't have been more plain.
More refugees coming in haste and hysterical panic with grim stories of shootings, bayoneting and with tales of victims hanging on barbed wire fences hacked to pieces. The only thing left for us to do was to make for the open fields in front of us. If we kept to the road, following the canal, the troopers would be after us quicker - as there was no resistance anywhere.
With a ditch between us we now tried to get as much distance, in the shortest possible time between the last point near the barge and the length of the field, We had just covered a couple of kilometeres when we heard the short, sharp, speedy droning of two low flying Dorniers coming from the direction of St. Omair. They were skimming the canal between the lane of trees and the place where we had left the barge, ... it went up in broken and splintered planks, boards flying in all directions.!!!!!We hoped the skipper had heeded the warning for him and his family. There was no time to turn back or wonder what could have been done as suddenly we came under fire ...
The German Artillery had us in its sights and shells began falling short of us only twenty yards away. Before we could hear more of the distant deep sounding bangs of the guns and the whistling shells following us we quickly dove into the ditch. Then at a rapid pace, we then continued to follow the ditch until we were safely behind a big farm wall. No doubt, they had taken us for soldiers and once out of sight they had lost us and didn't waste any more ammunition. How close it had been!
A toothless old crow appeared before the old farmstead mumbling, it was an English exercise and not to worry about it! The old lady looked more like a witch and we thought should have looked better in her crystal ball!We left her where she stood as we all turned around and saw a few more craters opening up on her land... The old lady went back inside in some doubt!
As we didn't fancy being stuck there we hurried along until we reached the bend in the winding,curving road facing the other way again taking our steps north again, coming to another canal behind a little village called Bergues, derived from the Flemish Bergen for mountains, more like little hills, as that is what they appeared to be.
A British platoon was busy behind Bergues working to enlarge the canal and digging their trenches very close to the bridge. They were all nice chaps, we all had the same adverse thoughts after what we had experienced before arriving in Bergues which was tell the chaps not to go over the bridge with The Hun so near! So we started a nice conversation, calmly telling what we had seen with the Germans on the back of us, too close for comfort, from where we had come.
A scout was sent straight away on a motor bike in that direction and it didn't take long for him to return and verify the statement. The only course left for them was to leave the trenches and retreat swiftly before being cut off. We hoped for their success in a tactical retreat as it came so often to be called.
As the platoon was soon out of sight we continued our march towards Hondschote and the border where we crossed into Belgium - we felt just like victorious warriors from the, "The Battle of the Golden Spurs". We were so glad to back on home ground.
We had been insulted, not given bread or water anymore since those silly remarks by irresponsible statesmen, even by our distance cousins in those territories that were French now.
At that moment, we couldn't forgive any of them either! The hurt had cut too deep; cowardice and subservance were not our weaknesses at any time: lest we forget. Once wrongly challenged our wrath would have to be reckoned with...".
To be continued ....
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