History of Le Paradis
The following information is taken from a French commemoration book presented to Dennis O'Callaghan by the town of Lestrem and translated here by Mark Larner and edited by Peter Steward.
Le Paradis is a small hamlet on the outskirts of the French town of Lestrem.
It is a place that has seen joy but terrible tragedy over the years. Indeed a booklet on Le Paradis speaks of the tales that the church of St Joseph could tell.
“If stones could talk they would speak of the joys and pains of this place because Paradis has suffered during the last two wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.”
One stone in particular has huge significance. A raised stone it was used by guards in the past to announce important news to the sound of a drum.
A school was founded in 1727 thanks to the generous donations of miller Pierre Varlet and his wife who set it up in a house 500 metres from Le Paradis. It was a school for the poor and other people from the areas to learn to read and write. The school was mixed until 1882 when a school for girls was built.
From 1831 until 1834 it was reported that the school had 17 children in winter and 40 in summer.
The church of Le Paradis was built in 1875 on land donated and paid for by local people. A bell tower was built in 1899 with support of the municipal council who voted a sum of 1,500 Francs. This church was destroyed in 1918 following an attack on British lines by the Germans during the First World War.
It was April 8th, 1918, when parishioners were forced to leave their homes under heavy shelling. The Germans broke through and set fire to the church at Le Paradis raising it to the ground. When British troops turned to the offensive to retake the ground lost they succeeded in destroying even more of the church.
Peace returned at the end of the war but by 1919 nothing remained of Le Paradis. There were no houses, no road and no trees. Only the foundations of the church remained. Houses, farms, school, cemetery, everything had disappeared and local people returned slowly to pick through the ruins.
Remarkably swiftly the church is re-built and completed by November 1925. The landscape continued to show the ravages of the conflict. It became evident that Lestrem and Le Paradis had been in the main combat zone. As a result the number of inhabitants dropped. The war had reduced the parish to dust. Many houses were left in ruins, although gradually Le Paradis began to pull round and by 1939 there were 520 inhabitants living in 133 houses.
Sadly history was to repeat itself with many house destroyed in the Second World War by fire and explosives and the lack of births during the war continued the reduction in size of the hamlet.
Once again the church suffered damage and wasn’t significantly repaired and returned to worship until 1947. The destroyed bell tower was restored in 1948.
The following is the French account of what took place on 27th May at Le Paradis:
“France was at war against NAZI Germany. During the battle of France within the battle of Dunkirk on the 26th May, 1940, the first battalion of the Royal Scots and the second battalion of the Royal Norfolk regiment arrived in the village of Paradis for a rearguard action. The general quarters and the first Aid Post of the regiment were established in houses and a farm in rue de Derrière. The positions of the company were held in the village and around the church. Severe losses were inflicted by the two British regiments on the division of SS Totenkopf. On 27th May the local people had evacuated the village before the battle there (they returned on the 2nd June to find their houses destroyed by fire) there. After the first hours of the morning the Germans installed on the north bank of the canal d’Aire at la Bassée at Hinges, attacked the outskirts of the aerodrome at Merville defended by what remained of the Royal Scots regiment. The Scottish soldiers fought ferociously against an enemy 10 times superior in number. Twice the assaults of the second infantry regiment of the SS supported by the second artillery regiment of the SS were repulsed. The courageous Scots counter-attacked with bayonets holding up for a time the attacks launched by the NAZIs who in their rage threw grenades into the cellars and set fire to almost all farms and houses in the quarter of Pacault, in Hinges.
“Unfortunately despite their heroism the Scots were soon overcome at the beginning of the afternoon by a third assault of the SS supported by their artillery. During this attack the assailants lost one of their chiefs, Colonel Goetze, and their rage increasing, they soon began to give way to acts of terrible barbarism which they committed in all the areas they passed through.
“The positions of the Royal Scots were annihilated by the prolonged shooting. In a farm transformed into a first Aid Post English nurses wearing their Red Cross armband looked after the injured. At 3 pm and with the outcome of the battle leaving no doubt for the British they waited from moment to moment for the appearance of the Germans. This was not long in coming. Drunk with anger the SS made advances. The English Major Ryder, occupied with the labour of a polish evacuee in the cellar of the building, was brutally thrown outside and forced to rejoin his companions. Surrounded, in total 98 prisoners were in this way grouped by the SS. The unfortunate British were taken to the wall of Creton Farm, where they were lined up while a machine gun was set up in front of them. This soon began spitting out death and the English were mown down at point blank range.
“In 1940 a few days after Pentecost everybody was thinking about the invasion. Anxiousness was in all hearts. One has to envisage the departure from Paradis faced by the German threat. May 21st after morning mass the parishioners announced the departure. Immediately panic overcame the population: the exodus was prepared. The German bombs which fell at of around 12 or 1 on the aerodrome increased the panic. Refugees began to fill the roads. At around 4 almost all the parish was abandoned: silence was everywhere: the silence of death. A few families came back on Thursday only to leave again on Saturday following warnings from the English who were occupying the village.
“The English, Royal Scots and the Royal Norfolks, resisted for five days, Thursday 23rd to Monday 27th, to hold back the German advance while the English and French armies retreated towards Dunkirk. The Germans forced their way across the canal and descended towards Paradis by the Hinges road. Paradis Street was set ablaze. The village was bombarded as far as the Lefebvre Farm and the Rue des Cerisiers. The church was hit, the furniture was burnt. 97 Englishman were rounded up, machine gunned and buried together shortly afterwards. The English defended themselves in the Rue de Paradis, in the church, in the presbytery and in the Rue Deleflie before surrendering to the greater numbers. They lost 55 lives, similar to the Germans. The English retreated towards Lestrem where the English general was. Lestrem partly suffered, apart from four or five farms burnt in Rue du Rouge Manchon. The bridge of Lawe was blown up and caused some damage to the windows in the church. When the Rigueult Road was blown up houses were badly damaged. At La Fosse the Lawe Bridge explosion damaged a neighbouring house.
On the 23rd of May an English plane crashed and set fire to the gas pipes which it severed in its fall. Heavy rain which arrived too late did not prevent the farms burning. On Thursday 30th after the battle observers returned to Paradis and then left again. They found farms burnt, a vast communal tomb containing 97 English bodies: the church burnt: two houses burnt and domestic animals killed, as well as the bodies of English soldiers along the road. In the cemetery tombs had been opened. Houses had been pillaged, their doors open, tiles in pieces, an indescribable ransacking.
They visited the houses, the day ended gloomily, with the uninterrupted sound of canons for two days with no let up: that was the battle of Dunkirk. The bodies of the English soldiers were buried where they were found after having identified them as far as possible. A few Germans there were also found in the fields. The church was bombarded from the Pacault Forest and by planes. The clock tower was mainly damaged on the upper floor. The bell was pierced by shell. A soldier had fired at the tabernacle which was closed but empty. The English had occupied the church. They fought at the presbytery The Saint Joseph room became the chapel for the parish. The fields turned green with the growth of the late barley and the brave armers planted his beans and worked his potato fields.
The Germans left quickly a few days later to go to the Somme.
“This is the story which tells you how this resolution taken in the middle of a pile of dead comrades led Pooley to survive through incredible and painful effort. Weaker men would have been dead or without hope saying ‘what can I do, me a simple soldier?’
This story is not beautiful but it is true. It happened to two amongst millions of British soldiers. It is astonishing not only because these two men designated for massacre, hit by bullets shot close by, had escaped the bayonets of those who gave the coup de grace; it is also astonishing because these two men literally risen from the grave despite the incredulity of the military authorities and their own friends succeeded in setting in train justice so that the crime could be avenged.
A humble disabled soldier in the British army and his comrade succeeded in tracing a German colonel across Europe, tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘it’s you we want’.
NOTE: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site states that there are a total of 166 casualties buried in Le Paradis cemetery of which 115 have been identified. These are the 111 names that we have and which can be viewed by clicking here and in addition the following members of the RAF:
Sgt William JEFFREY
Sgt Jack Francis SANDALL
Sgt James SIMPSON
Fl Sgt Cyril Leslie SUMPSTER
Le Paradis is a small hamlet on the outskirts of the French town of Lestrem.
It is a place that has seen joy but terrible tragedy over the years. Indeed a booklet on Le Paradis speaks of the tales that the church of St Joseph could tell.
“If stones could talk they would speak of the joys and pains of this place because Paradis has suffered during the last two wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.”
One stone in particular has huge significance. A raised stone it was used by guards in the past to announce important news to the sound of a drum.
A school was founded in 1727 thanks to the generous donations of miller Pierre Varlet and his wife who set it up in a house 500 metres from Le Paradis. It was a school for the poor and other people from the areas to learn to read and write. The school was mixed until 1882 when a school for girls was built.
From 1831 until 1834 it was reported that the school had 17 children in winter and 40 in summer.
The church of Le Paradis was built in 1875 on land donated and paid for by local people. A bell tower was built in 1899 with support of the municipal council who voted a sum of 1,500 Francs. This church was destroyed in 1918 following an attack on British lines by the Germans during the First World War.
It was April 8th, 1918, when parishioners were forced to leave their homes under heavy shelling. The Germans broke through and set fire to the church at Le Paradis raising it to the ground. When British troops turned to the offensive to retake the ground lost they succeeded in destroying even more of the church.
Peace returned at the end of the war but by 1919 nothing remained of Le Paradis. There were no houses, no road and no trees. Only the foundations of the church remained. Houses, farms, school, cemetery, everything had disappeared and local people returned slowly to pick through the ruins.
Remarkably swiftly the church is re-built and completed by November 1925. The landscape continued to show the ravages of the conflict. It became evident that Lestrem and Le Paradis had been in the main combat zone. As a result the number of inhabitants dropped. The war had reduced the parish to dust. Many houses were left in ruins, although gradually Le Paradis began to pull round and by 1939 there were 520 inhabitants living in 133 houses.
Sadly history was to repeat itself with many house destroyed in the Second World War by fire and explosives and the lack of births during the war continued the reduction in size of the hamlet.
Once again the church suffered damage and wasn’t significantly repaired and returned to worship until 1947. The destroyed bell tower was restored in 1948.
The following is the French account of what took place on 27th May at Le Paradis:
“France was at war against NAZI Germany. During the battle of France within the battle of Dunkirk on the 26th May, 1940, the first battalion of the Royal Scots and the second battalion of the Royal Norfolk regiment arrived in the village of Paradis for a rearguard action. The general quarters and the first Aid Post of the regiment were established in houses and a farm in rue de Derrière. The positions of the company were held in the village and around the church. Severe losses were inflicted by the two British regiments on the division of SS Totenkopf. On 27th May the local people had evacuated the village before the battle there (they returned on the 2nd June to find their houses destroyed by fire) there. After the first hours of the morning the Germans installed on the north bank of the canal d’Aire at la Bassée at Hinges, attacked the outskirts of the aerodrome at Merville defended by what remained of the Royal Scots regiment. The Scottish soldiers fought ferociously against an enemy 10 times superior in number. Twice the assaults of the second infantry regiment of the SS supported by the second artillery regiment of the SS were repulsed. The courageous Scots counter-attacked with bayonets holding up for a time the attacks launched by the NAZIs who in their rage threw grenades into the cellars and set fire to almost all farms and houses in the quarter of Pacault, in Hinges.
“Unfortunately despite their heroism the Scots were soon overcome at the beginning of the afternoon by a third assault of the SS supported by their artillery. During this attack the assailants lost one of their chiefs, Colonel Goetze, and their rage increasing, they soon began to give way to acts of terrible barbarism which they committed in all the areas they passed through.
“The positions of the Royal Scots were annihilated by the prolonged shooting. In a farm transformed into a first Aid Post English nurses wearing their Red Cross armband looked after the injured. At 3 pm and with the outcome of the battle leaving no doubt for the British they waited from moment to moment for the appearance of the Germans. This was not long in coming. Drunk with anger the SS made advances. The English Major Ryder, occupied with the labour of a polish evacuee in the cellar of the building, was brutally thrown outside and forced to rejoin his companions. Surrounded, in total 98 prisoners were in this way grouped by the SS. The unfortunate British were taken to the wall of Creton Farm, where they were lined up while a machine gun was set up in front of them. This soon began spitting out death and the English were mown down at point blank range.
“In 1940 a few days after Pentecost everybody was thinking about the invasion. Anxiousness was in all hearts. One has to envisage the departure from Paradis faced by the German threat. May 21st after morning mass the parishioners announced the departure. Immediately panic overcame the population: the exodus was prepared. The German bombs which fell at of around 12 or 1 on the aerodrome increased the panic. Refugees began to fill the roads. At around 4 almost all the parish was abandoned: silence was everywhere: the silence of death. A few families came back on Thursday only to leave again on Saturday following warnings from the English who were occupying the village.
“The English, Royal Scots and the Royal Norfolks, resisted for five days, Thursday 23rd to Monday 27th, to hold back the German advance while the English and French armies retreated towards Dunkirk. The Germans forced their way across the canal and descended towards Paradis by the Hinges road. Paradis Street was set ablaze. The village was bombarded as far as the Lefebvre Farm and the Rue des Cerisiers. The church was hit, the furniture was burnt. 97 Englishman were rounded up, machine gunned and buried together shortly afterwards. The English defended themselves in the Rue de Paradis, in the church, in the presbytery and in the Rue Deleflie before surrendering to the greater numbers. They lost 55 lives, similar to the Germans. The English retreated towards Lestrem where the English general was. Lestrem partly suffered, apart from four or five farms burnt in Rue du Rouge Manchon. The bridge of Lawe was blown up and caused some damage to the windows in the church. When the Rigueult Road was blown up houses were badly damaged. At La Fosse the Lawe Bridge explosion damaged a neighbouring house.
On the 23rd of May an English plane crashed and set fire to the gas pipes which it severed in its fall. Heavy rain which arrived too late did not prevent the farms burning. On Thursday 30th after the battle observers returned to Paradis and then left again. They found farms burnt, a vast communal tomb containing 97 English bodies: the church burnt: two houses burnt and domestic animals killed, as well as the bodies of English soldiers along the road. In the cemetery tombs had been opened. Houses had been pillaged, their doors open, tiles in pieces, an indescribable ransacking.
They visited the houses, the day ended gloomily, with the uninterrupted sound of canons for two days with no let up: that was the battle of Dunkirk. The bodies of the English soldiers were buried where they were found after having identified them as far as possible. A few Germans there were also found in the fields. The church was bombarded from the Pacault Forest and by planes. The clock tower was mainly damaged on the upper floor. The bell was pierced by shell. A soldier had fired at the tabernacle which was closed but empty. The English had occupied the church. They fought at the presbytery The Saint Joseph room became the chapel for the parish. The fields turned green with the growth of the late barley and the brave armers planted his beans and worked his potato fields.
The Germans left quickly a few days later to go to the Somme.
“This is the story which tells you how this resolution taken in the middle of a pile of dead comrades led Pooley to survive through incredible and painful effort. Weaker men would have been dead or without hope saying ‘what can I do, me a simple soldier?’
This story is not beautiful but it is true. It happened to two amongst millions of British soldiers. It is astonishing not only because these two men designated for massacre, hit by bullets shot close by, had escaped the bayonets of those who gave the coup de grace; it is also astonishing because these two men literally risen from the grave despite the incredulity of the military authorities and their own friends succeeded in setting in train justice so that the crime could be avenged.
A humble disabled soldier in the British army and his comrade succeeded in tracing a German colonel across Europe, tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘it’s you we want’.
NOTE: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site states that there are a total of 166 casualties buried in Le Paradis cemetery of which 115 have been identified. These are the 111 names that we have and which can be viewed by clicking here and in addition the following members of the RAF:
Sgt William JEFFREY
Sgt Jack Francis SANDALL
Sgt James SIMPSON
Fl Sgt Cyril Leslie SUMPSTER