Digging in the archives

There were many memorable moments in the researching Ordinary Heroes.

There were documents with Winston Churchill’s handwritten footnotes reluctantly agreeing to bury the investigations about the events of June 1940.

The release of German records held by the former Soviet Union allowed the situation surrounding the last days of the BEF to be plotted.

A year later I was reading high-level complaints about the maverick activities of the company’s neighbours at Kabrit in Egypt while I investigated why these skilled engineers were undertaking commando training. The maverick was Capt David Stirling who was preparing his warriors to found the SAS. Their RAF host complained that accommodation had been prepared but Stirling insisted on sleeping in the desert.

But the most remarkable document I discovered was on a little scap of paper torn from a book. It was the last entry in possibly the last operational British headquarters left in France in June 1940. It said the the Company were still scattere around the countryside. I imagined the anguish of the officer who wrote this as he was ordered to evacuate and head for England.

Some of the Company would soon discover that they had been abandoned and successfully made their way home, after the fall of France.