The return of the Highland 51st Division from St Valery 80th and the discovery of a Lewis Nazi map​

Regiments, both Territorial and regular army, which recruited in the Western Isles were disproportionately represented within the 51st (Highland) Division which was deployed to Normandy in February 1940 in anticipation of a German advance.

It was still the period of the “phoney war” and French commanders under-estimated the imminence of the German attack. Cornered in the small port of St Valery, the Division paid an extraordinary human price as the last line of resistance, alongside the French 10th Army.

The story is famous in military history. From a Hebridean perspective, it is movingly told in the book edited by South Uist’s Bill Innes “St Valery: The Impossible Odds”.

He wrote: “By the 12th, Rommel’s guns commanded the cliffs to the west of St Valery, making further rescue by sea impossible. Rommel himself paid tribute to the stout resistance put up by the 51st but the disparity in weaponry was too great; the gallant British and French effort was doomed as food and ammunition ran out.

“Four thousand French were captured together with eight thousand men of the Division”. The long march to Prisoner of War camps gave rise to stories of daring escapes and cruel suffering that resonate to this day, not least through publications like “Cuimhneachain St Valery” (2018), as the last first-hand memories faded.

Back home, the scale of this military disaster must have been incomprehensible. For months, sometimes years, families did not know if sons, husbands, fathers had been killed or taken prisoner. Small wonder that the event and its aftermath are still commemorated.

Malcolm Macdonald of Stornoway Historical Society, who has researched the subject closely, says: “The Cameron Highlanders were part-time soldiers with Cameron lads from Uist fighting alongside the Ross Battery, a light anti-tank unit from Lewis. The Harris Camerons had only been formed in 1938. They were up against professional enemy units.

“At Abbeville, the 4th Battalion of the Camerons lost 18 men from Harris and Uist and at St Valery two Ross Battery soldiers were killed fighting as infantry. After the surrender over 150 islanders faced the long walk to Germany and Poland. Some escaped on the way and got home but for others it was five long years of captivity”.

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D-DAY AND BEYOND

By the summer of 1944, the Nazis were in retreat and the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, marked the beginning of the end for the occupation of Western Europe. The Germans were forced back, town by town and by the beginning of September, the liberation of St Valery-en-Caux was complete.

The first specific news of this for readers of the Stornoway Gazette appeared in the issue of September 14th, 1944.

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THE 51st DIVISION RETURNS TO ST VALERY

The 51st Division has taken St Valery-en-Caux. Thus have the Highlanders wreaked a consummation for June 12, 1940, when, at St Valery, the last fragments of the original Division, since re-constituted into the present redoubtable formation laid down their arms and marched past their leader, General Victor Fortune, in the rain.

The original Division went down fighting to the bitter end. It did not surrender until it had left its dead in every Norman field from the Somme to the little River Durdent, from the Cambron Woods to the trees ringing the cemetery where the Black Watch stood at last at bay.

The divisional artillery had not a round of ammunition left and the formation was reduced to a few companies of exhausted riflemen with Bren guns in support, surrounded by vastly superior enemy forces with artillery, armour and abundance of mortars and machine guns.

The re-constituted 51st Division began to take its revenge in October 1942. It played an unsurpassed part in the victory at El Alamein in the pursuit across the desert, in the smashing of the Mareth Line, the storming of the Wadi Akarit and in the final actions of the campaign.

From the early days of the Norman campaign, the Highlanders were in action on the left of the British Line. At St Honorine, where one brigade destroyed 15 tanks in a single day, in the hard fight in the Colombelles area, and in many later actions as our left flank bulged and burst forth to overrun great enemy forces to the East, the 51st Division has upheld its noble tradition.

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MONTY’S REQUEST

The ‘History of the 51st Highland Division’ recalls that as they pursued the retreating Germans across Normandy, they were attached to the Canadian Army to whom the Commander of the Allied Forces, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, addressed a special request.

Conscious of the past history, “it was Montgomery's wish that the Division should recapture St Valéry and he asked the Canadian Army commander to arrange this. Carrying on, they arrived at St.Valéry on 1st September where the 5th Seaforth and 5th Camerons met each other in the Station Square.

“The Divisional Commander, Major General Rennie, put his Headquarters in the Chateau at Cailleville which had been General Fortune's Headquarters in 1940 … September 3rd was made St Valéry day. The massed pipes and drums of the Division beat Retreat at Caillevile”.

Two weeks later, there appeared in the Gazette a personal and deeply poignant account of the liberation of St Valery-en-Caux.

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THE 51st RETURNS TO ST VALERY – STORNOWAY SEAFORTH’S DESCRIPTION

In a letter home, Pte Donald Macaulay, Seaforth Highlanders, of 4 Coulregrein, describes the return of the 51st Highland Division to St Valery-en-Caux. It is just a hurried pencil note, but it gives a graphic picture of the triumphant return of the new Division on the spot where the old laid down their arms in 1940 when they could fight no longer.

“Some four days ago, I had my first glimpse of the Seine from a very high hill; the river, wide and slow running, with very high, thickly wooded hills on both sides. It was a grand view and one I think I’ll always remember. Shortly after that, we passed over it.

“On our way from one side of the river to the other, we had a wonderful reception – all along the road, people waving, shouting, V signs, Vive La France, Vive l’Anglaise, throwing apples to us, giving us drinks of ciders and wines, and in one very small village, where we halted for a short time, there were by the roadside twelve Canadians buried. Their graves were well kept and heaped with flowers and while we were there, a few girls came along with fresh sprays.

“As you’ll know from the news, we ultimately reached St Valery. There our Commander placed the Division, Brigade by Brigade, as they were when they were fighting on that spot in 1940, before we had to withdraw. He himself was on the Staff of Divisional Headquarters at that time.

“One afternoon, the massed pipes and drums of the Division played retreat at main Headquarters. It was a sight. The Pipe Majors of each Battalion played together before the actual beating of Retreat – the “Flowers of the Forest” as a tribute to all our fellows who paid the high price.

“Then, during the playing of the Band, a delegation of the French people appeared carrying flags, with young children wearing confirmation clothes and everyone dressed in their Sunday best. When our Band finished, this procession walked over to the General and thanked him for their release from the Nazis and welcomed us all to France.

“Then they presented him with a bouquet of flowers. Altogether, it was a moving sight”.

The same issue of the Gazette carried the story of an extraordinary coincidence which emerged from the rubble of the German retreat. It also raised the question of whether, at some earlier point in the War, the Nazis had contemplated an invasion of the Hebrides.

NAZI MAP OF LEWIS – FOUND BY 51ST DIVISION IN NORMANDY

Among the litter left behind by the Germans as they fled from Normandy, a private of the 51st Division found a map of Lewis. The map is headed: “Nur fur den Dienstgerauch!” which signifies that it was prepared for the use of the German services. (Only for Official Use).

While Lewis occupies one side of the sheet, a map of Normandy occupies the other. The map of Lewis was relatively clean but the map of Normandy bears traces of much use – especially the section which have to be consulted by an enemy fleeing from the Caen, Falaise, Avranche line.

Although they occupy two sides of the same sheet, the maps are in different styles and were presumably printed at different periods. Which raises the interesting speculation, at which stage of the war did Hitler decide that the map of Lewis would be of little use to him, and that he could save paper by putting his map of Normandy on the back of it?

It must have been a bit of a surprise to the Private, and to the Lewis officer to whom he handed the map, to see the heading “Karte von Schottland” over a map with the familiar place-names, Tiumpan, Tolsta, Eoropie, Barvas and the rest.

The officer to whom the map was handed, Captain Quentin Mackenzie, Bayble, comments: “It seems that Lewis was not forgotten in Hitler’s invasion plans and the law-abiding inhabitants of Bayble might well have seen a convoy of barges full of bull-necked Tutons come into the bay. Point, of course, would be their first objective, being composed of the elite of the island.

“I was standing on a hill surrounded by all the havoc and destruction of battle, looking down to a lovely stretch of wooded countryside with the Seine winding along peacefully below. It all seemed very incongruous and when a grinning Private handed me this map, it seemed stranger still.

“I wonder if the Herrenvolk had lessons in Gaelic? It would rather stagger them if they got a mouthful from an irate Rudhach for trampling his potatoes! And I could imagine the Bayble youths having a fine time bouncing stones off their flaxen polls – they were always adepts at that game!

“We are all in grand fettle here. Chasing the Hun is a strenuous pastime but one does it cheerfully, knowing it is a big jump towards the end of it all”.

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AFTER ATTENDING a commemorative event in 2000, Bill Innes wrote: “The people of St Valery continue to remember the men of the Highland Division. A street in the town bears the name Avenue do la 51st Division.

“In 1950, a fine granite monument was erected on high ground to the east. Its Gaelic inscription ‘Là a’ bhlair is math na càirdean’ translates as “The day of battle it is good to have friends’.”

St Valery’s liberation did not bring the story full circle for thousands who had been captured in June 1940 and were still in PoW camps. As the Russians moved towards Germany from the east, many of these prisoners endured force marches, in the depths of the 1944-45 winter.

“It is estimated” wrote Bill Innes, “that thousands lost their lives as a result and many of the survivors were as emaciated as those found in the concentration camps”.

In “Cuimhneachan St Valery”, the story is told of ‘Al Crae’ who joined the Ross Mountain Battery in 1939 and was captured at St Valery. He escaped from Stalag 9B but was recaptured and remained a PoW until 1945. “By the time Alasdair returned home to Stornoway after the war, he weighed only six and a half stones … He named his daughter born in 1950, Valery”.

There were many such stories of tribulations, loss and aftermaths now almost beyond our comprehension; some of them recorded in print and more lost to memory.

The South Uist bard, Donald John Macdonald, was among those captured at St Valery.

Eighty years on from St Valery Day - an act of liberation which had such deep significance for these islands – the question he asked in his poem ‘An Carraigh-Cuimhne Cogaidh’ has unchanging significance:

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A bheil gach ainm ann air chuimhne

Le mòr-thaingealachd shiorraidh,

Neo ‘n d’ leig an ginealach ùr seo

An iobairt-clìu ud air dìochuimn’?

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Is every name remembered

With gratitude eternal,

Or has this new generation

Forgotten their sacrifice?