They Wrote About the Massacre
On this page we feature some of the men and women who have written about the massacre at Le Paradis.
Richard Lane
Richard Lane's book "Last Stand at Le Paradis - The Events Leading to the SS Massacre of the Norfolks 1940" is a primary source for historians and an important publication for those wanting to understand just what took place in that remote French village in May 1940.
Richard Lane was interested in history from a very early age, often accompanying cousins to castles and historic sites where they would mix history with play. Richard was always destined to become a writer despite being poor at spelling as his widow Debbi explained to us:
"When I was clearing out our house in Norwich to move to a new home in 2010, I found Richard's school reports when he was aged seven or eight. His spelling and handwriting were both rated 'atrocious' but he was a wordsmith and loved writing, history and the English language. His father was an amateur archaeologist and Richard used to accompany him on some digs. Richard had an inquiring mind, always wanting to know what happened, why it happened and how it happened. We used to go into churches because of their history rather than for religious reasons. He was born to write and was also an excellent storyteller," Debbi said.
Debbi and Richard met at a party through mutual friends and subsequently the Beehive Public House in Norwich became their meeting place.
"Richard was going through a difficult divorce at the time and, as I had also been married before, his friends thought I could help him through a tough time," Debbi said.
Debbi and Richard married on October 8th, 1977, a day after Richard's 30th birthday. Debbi was 26. They enjoyed a wonderful marriage of almost 31 years.
"Every Sunday when he wasn't working he would take me round Norwich, telling me the history of the place and he was always writing articles for local magazines and publications," Debbi added.
In 1976 Richard was commissioned to write a history of "Snap the Norwich Dragon." At this time he was also writing fantasy stories for children but none of these were published.
After writing a history of Sarah Lloyd from Bury St Edmunds which also failed to find a publisher, Richard decided to turn his attention to his native Norwich and to tell the history of the city through its plains.
"Plains of Norwich" by Richard Lane was published by the Larks Press in 1999, after which the same publishers commissioned Richard to write a book on the life of Norfolk's Anna Gurney. The result was the publication of "Anna Gurney: Scholar and Philanthropist" as part of a series of pocket guides to well known people of Norfolk. This came out around 2002.
Writing by necessity continued to be a part-time hobby for Richard. Initially he worked in advertising before joining his family newsagents in Colman Road, Norwich, firstly helping his parents and then taking on the main role when they retired in 1986. Richard retired in 1991 and was then able to dedicate himself to writing. From 2002-2007, he was assistant groundsman at the home of Norfolk cricket at Horsford. He also undertook occasional work refurbishing cricket grounds, tennis courts, bowls greens and other sports areas in the closed season.
Richard had always been interested in military history and aware of the massacre at Le Paradis: "Writing something on Le Paradis was always in the back of his mind. We started going on battlefield tours in 2002 and in 2004 we went on a "Fortress Europe" tour which included Le Paradis. Richard was quite emotional in the cemetery at Le Paradis. He felt an affinity with those who died and he referred to them as his boys," Debbi added.
Richard's determination to tell the story of those massacred was also fueled by anger that, whilst the massacre of the Warwickshire regiment at Wormhoudt was well known, little was known of the massacre of the Royal Norfolks at Le Paradis. "The story has to be told," were Richard's words to Debbi.
Thus started Richard's journey which involved researching the history of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and the background to the Second World War and spending hundreds of hours going through documents at the Norfolk Regimental Museum in Norwich and the Imperial War Museum. "Richard spent days and days listening to tape recordings and going through information. He realised this was a huge story," Debbi said.
It took Richard well over three years to research and write "Last Stand at Le Paradis." Pen and Sword books became interested in the project and agreed to publish the book. Sadly Richard wouldn't live to see its publication, although he knew the first draft had arrived, dying from sepsis following cancer treatment on August 25th, 2008. Debbi was left to grieve, but also to forge ahead with the book as a memorial to her husband.
Debbi and their niece Hannah worked diligently through the first proof and Debbi did the final checks and picture captions. When the book came out Debbi included the following words to act as a memorial to Richard:
"I sincerely hope that the finished book, which took Richard four years to complete, will be a fitting tribute to my husband's memory."
We hope that the work of the Le Paradis Commemoration Group on this web site will also stand as a memorial to a man who loved writing, loved history, loved Norwich and Norfolk and who was determined to ensure the memory of those massacred at Le Paradis would live on.
The photograph at the top of this article and below are from Richard's own collection and are used with the permission of Debbi Lane.
Richard Lane was interested in history from a very early age, often accompanying cousins to castles and historic sites where they would mix history with play. Richard was always destined to become a writer despite being poor at spelling as his widow Debbi explained to us:
"When I was clearing out our house in Norwich to move to a new home in 2010, I found Richard's school reports when he was aged seven or eight. His spelling and handwriting were both rated 'atrocious' but he was a wordsmith and loved writing, history and the English language. His father was an amateur archaeologist and Richard used to accompany him on some digs. Richard had an inquiring mind, always wanting to know what happened, why it happened and how it happened. We used to go into churches because of their history rather than for religious reasons. He was born to write and was also an excellent storyteller," Debbi said.
Debbi and Richard met at a party through mutual friends and subsequently the Beehive Public House in Norwich became their meeting place.
"Richard was going through a difficult divorce at the time and, as I had also been married before, his friends thought I could help him through a tough time," Debbi said.
Debbi and Richard married on October 8th, 1977, a day after Richard's 30th birthday. Debbi was 26. They enjoyed a wonderful marriage of almost 31 years.
"Every Sunday when he wasn't working he would take me round Norwich, telling me the history of the place and he was always writing articles for local magazines and publications," Debbi added.
In 1976 Richard was commissioned to write a history of "Snap the Norwich Dragon." At this time he was also writing fantasy stories for children but none of these were published.
After writing a history of Sarah Lloyd from Bury St Edmunds which also failed to find a publisher, Richard decided to turn his attention to his native Norwich and to tell the history of the city through its plains.
"Plains of Norwich" by Richard Lane was published by the Larks Press in 1999, after which the same publishers commissioned Richard to write a book on the life of Norfolk's Anna Gurney. The result was the publication of "Anna Gurney: Scholar and Philanthropist" as part of a series of pocket guides to well known people of Norfolk. This came out around 2002.
Writing by necessity continued to be a part-time hobby for Richard. Initially he worked in advertising before joining his family newsagents in Colman Road, Norwich, firstly helping his parents and then taking on the main role when they retired in 1986. Richard retired in 1991 and was then able to dedicate himself to writing. From 2002-2007, he was assistant groundsman at the home of Norfolk cricket at Horsford. He also undertook occasional work refurbishing cricket grounds, tennis courts, bowls greens and other sports areas in the closed season.
Richard had always been interested in military history and aware of the massacre at Le Paradis: "Writing something on Le Paradis was always in the back of his mind. We started going on battlefield tours in 2002 and in 2004 we went on a "Fortress Europe" tour which included Le Paradis. Richard was quite emotional in the cemetery at Le Paradis. He felt an affinity with those who died and he referred to them as his boys," Debbi added.
Richard's determination to tell the story of those massacred was also fueled by anger that, whilst the massacre of the Warwickshire regiment at Wormhoudt was well known, little was known of the massacre of the Royal Norfolks at Le Paradis. "The story has to be told," were Richard's words to Debbi.
Thus started Richard's journey which involved researching the history of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and the background to the Second World War and spending hundreds of hours going through documents at the Norfolk Regimental Museum in Norwich and the Imperial War Museum. "Richard spent days and days listening to tape recordings and going through information. He realised this was a huge story," Debbi said.
It took Richard well over three years to research and write "Last Stand at Le Paradis." Pen and Sword books became interested in the project and agreed to publish the book. Sadly Richard wouldn't live to see its publication, although he knew the first draft had arrived, dying from sepsis following cancer treatment on August 25th, 2008. Debbi was left to grieve, but also to forge ahead with the book as a memorial to her husband.
Debbi and their niece Hannah worked diligently through the first proof and Debbi did the final checks and picture captions. When the book came out Debbi included the following words to act as a memorial to Richard:
"I sincerely hope that the finished book, which took Richard four years to complete, will be a fitting tribute to my husband's memory."
We hope that the work of the Le Paradis Commemoration Group on this web site will also stand as a memorial to a man who loved writing, loved history, loved Norwich and Norfolk and who was determined to ensure the memory of those massacred at Le Paradis would live on.
The photograph at the top of this article and below are from Richard's own collection and are used with the permission of Debbi Lane.
Images above and right were taken by Richard Lane during one of his trips to Le Paradis. Pictures copyright Debbi Lane and used with her permission.
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IN the April 4th, 2009, edition of the Eastern Daily Press newspaper reporter Steve Snelling wrote about Richard Lane's passion for obtaining details of the massacre which culminated in the publication of his excellent book "Last Stand at Le Paradis" - extracts of which are used throughout this web site with the permission of Richard's widow Debbi.
Steve Snelling explained how an historical odyssey designed to honour the memory of the Royal Norfolk victims of the wartime atrocity became, in a tragic twist of fate, writer Richard Lane’s remarkable epitaph:
The ghosts of war cast a haunting shadow over the scattered hamlets that freckle the Pas de Calais and the roads leading to Dunkirk. This is hallowed ground, drenched with the blood of men whose myriad last stands helped save an army from irredeemable defeat almost 70 years ago, and is now marked by a rash of cemeteries that bear mute testimony to the horrors of those desperate days.
Everywhere you turn, signs point to a baleful past, of hopeless battles fought and lost, of lives cut tragically short. And nowhere is that sacrifice more poignantly or powerfully felt than in the small Commonwealth War Graves Commission plot tucked behind the church of Le Paradis, some 35 miles south of the broad beaches where an armada of ‘little boats’ rescued more than 300,000 men from the clutches of a triumphant German army.
It was to this place, with its 150 graves including many men from the Royal Norfolk Regiment who were victims not of battle but of one of the Second World War’s most notorious massacres, that Richard and Debbi Lane came in 2004.
Inveterate battlefield tourists, they had visited cemeteries spanning two world wars stretching from Flanders to Normandy and The Somme, but none had touched them more profoundly than that trip to Le Paradis.
“The abiding feeling was one of absolute coldest, “recalls Debbi. “ To stand in front of the memorial to those men, to see the place where they were originally buried and then to visit the cemetery with that wonderful cross was deeply affecting. I felt a cold shiver going right down my spine and I could see that Richard, who was never one to show much emotion, was so moved by it all because he just clammed up. And when he came home, I remember him saying, ‘right, that’s it, I’m going to do a tribute to those boys.”
That decision singled the beginning of an extraordinary personal odyssey, a self-ordained mission of remembrance that has, in a remarkable twist of fate, become his own memorial.
The story behind two strangely connected tragedies unfolds one evening at the Norwich House where Richard Lane had devoted the better part of four years to drafting and re-drafting the book he would not live to see published.
The house resounds with echoes of a martial past. In the entrance hall, a wall serves as a shrine to more than a century of soldiering spanning three generations of Debbi’s family. “We once worked out that if you added Richard and my immediate families together 21 relatives served in the First World War alone,” she says.
It’s a record she plainly proud of just as she is of her cricket-loving husband’s late burgeoning career as a local historian of note. Since selling up the family’s newsagents’ business, he’d embarked on a new career as a writer and researcher. A history of the Plains of Norwich and biography of Anna Gurney were the products of an enquiring enthusiasm for the past that both of them shared.
It was pure pleasure, “ recalls Debbi. “The only breaks Richard ever had were working holidays or wonderful days out that were focused on research.”
In time that passion was extended to their joint fascination in the first and Second World War battlefields where so many of their forbears had fought. It was a journey of historical discovery that would lead to the unprepossessing village of Le Paradis and what Richard has described as the” darker memory” of war- the pre-meditated murder of 97 British prisoners of war, most of them Royal Norfolks, by their SS Captors.
“He’d known about the massacre, “says Debbi. “It had featured in a number of book, but there was no definitive history, no single account that chartered the events that led to it and all the accounts of what followed.”
What particularly irked Richard was a sense that the massacre had come to be overshadowed by a similar atrocity involving men of the Warwickshire Regiment a few miles and a few hours apart at a place called Wormhoudt. “It was as if everyone knew of the events at Wormhoudt, “says Debbi, but hardly anyone outside of Norfolk seemed to know about Le Paradis. That was the spur, to make sure those boys at Le Paradis were not forgotten.”
Four years of hard graft and countless drafts lay ahead as Richard rolled back the decades to unravel the full story of a courageous rear-guard action worthy of a far better end than the men of the 2nd Royal Norfolks faced in May 1940.
In Last Stand at Le Paradis, he compellingly and comprehensively charts the fortunes and misfortunes that befell the battalion during the first nine months of the Second Worlds War, culminating in its heroic attempt to delay the Nazi juggernaut as it smashed its way through Belgium and France.
From early skirmishes in the snow- shrouded Maginot Line to the fighting retreat across Belgium and Northern France, he deploys a small army of eyewitnesses to vividly recall the draining and depleting attempts to shore up a steadily disintegrating defence.
By the fourth week of May, and barely a fortnight after the Wehrmacht had launched its blitzkrieg offensive, the exhausted 2nd Royal Norfolks had been reduced to half its strength and was faced with its sternest test: to resist to the last bullet and the last ounce of strength the enemy’s efforts to crush the shrinking Dunkirk bridgehead and thus destroy all hopes of a successful evacuation.
In Richard’s estimation, it amounted to a ”mission impossible”, yet resulted in a “monumental effort” that succeeded against all the odds in securing a vital breathing space for the so-called Miracle of Dunkirk to be carried out.
Thinly spread across two miles of French countryside freckled with farms and broken by a network of ditches and dykes the remnants of the battalion fought a brave, confused series of actions against a numerically superior enemy supported by tanks, surrendering ground only when forced to do so.
The intensity of the fighting and the determination to stand fast was perhaps best summed up by an order issued by the Royal Norfolk’s acting CO, Major Lisle Ryder to one of his officers to hold his threatened position at all costs – to the last man and the last round” with the added instruction to “keep them back with your pistol if necessary”.
The climax of that doomed struggle came around the Duriez Farm, near the village of Le Cornet Malo. Converted into a strongpoint, its wall cut with loophole and straw bales serving as makeshift sandbags, it was defended by a makeshift force largely consisting of the battalion’s headquarters’ company.
For hours they held out until, as Richard’s account makes clear, they were cut-off and forced to surrender to a company of the SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head) Division commanded by Captain Fritz Knoechlein.
What followed next on May 27, 1940, was, according to Richard, a wretched example “of what happens when the rules, those by which nations seek to civilise the ugly brutality of war, are ignored”.
Stripped of their equipment and herded together, nearly 100 grimy captives were beaten with rifle butts and marched to a meadow of a neighbouring farm owned by Louis Creton. Turning off a dusty road, the dejected and dishevelled column reached a long red- brick barn to be confronted by two machine-guns.
In that moment, the grim realisation of their fate sank in. One of the prisoners, Albert Pooley, called it “one of the nastiest feelings I’ve ever had in my life”.
“I felt as though an icy hand gripped my stomach,” added Pooley. “The guns began to spit fire and even as the front men began to fall I said fiercely “This can’t be. They can’t do this!”
In the bloody mayhem that followed 97 out of the 99 unarmed captives died, but two men, Pooley and Norfolk-born Bill O’Callaghan lived to tell the gruesome tale that would eventually send Knoechlein to the gallows.
The story of the prolonged fight for justice, as seen from both the British and German perspective, is explored in forensic detail in Richard’s gripping narrative history.
Yet, while the trial; that condemned Knoechlein marked the conclusion to one tragedy, another one was about to begin for with contract for the book signed and work under way on the final draft, Richard received the bombshell news that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the bladder.
The first signs of trouble, blood in his urine, had occurred some eight weeks earlier, but initial checks were unclear as to the seriousness of the problem. Amid the uncertainty, Richard focused whole heartedly on Le Paradis and the fulfilment of his mission.
“In hindsight,” says Debbi, “the fact that he had the final draft to work on could hardly have been better timed. It kept him thoroughly occupied at every stage of his treatment. He was absolutely determined to see it through.”
Throughout the ordeal his office remained the hub of operations as it had done throughout the project. “You could never get into his office,” shrugs Debbi. “It was piled high with books and documents and research papers, but he knew where everything was and he was absolutely focused on the book. He spent weeks and weeks poring over books and papers in the regimental museum and The Forum. Everything he found would be written out and catalogued, always in pencil first in old accounts books, in fact anything he could lay his hands on, and then gradually it would be scrubbed out and more writings would appear.”
By August last year the final manuscript with a few omissions, was with the publisher and the editing process was ready to begin. At first Richard had to undergo surgery. “He’d been told he’d have to have his bladder removed,” says Debbi. “The cancer was very advanced and it was the only way of saving him.”
While in hospital, the proof of the book arrived for checking. “’Great he said’,” recalls Debbi, “’ we can check them when we get home’.”.
Tragically, however, Richard never made it home. “He came through the op absolutely brilliantly, “says Debbi. “He was a wonderful patient. Seemed really on the mend, unfortunately he contracted a urinary tract infection and because he was such a fit man his body did not show any signs of the infection until it was too late and they couldn’t save him. He suffered total organ failure.”
Desolation at the loss of her husband of more than 30 years was replaced by a determination to see his work completed. “I had to do it,” she says with a look of steely resolve that seems indicative of her no-nonsense, thoroughly positive approach to life. “People kept asking me what I intended to do and I simply said ‘Richard’s book has to appear’. That was my spur. It had to be done as a memorial to him, a testimony to his four year’s work and a testimony to those Norfolk boys who died at Le Paradis.”
Helped by her niece, Hannah, proofs were read and corrected, bibliography completed, pictures checked, a list of acknowledgements adjusted and a new dedication added in loving memory of a life well spent and thoroughly enjoyed”. “That was Richard’s own saying” smiles Debbi. “That was the theme of his life. He had a damned good life and loved every minute of it.”
What had begun as a tribute to the sacrifice of a group of Royal Norfolk soldiers had become a tribute also to the courageous dedication of one man and to his wife’s determination to ensure his efforts were not in vain.
“When I first saw the book” says Debbi. “I just stood in the hall for about five minutes looking at it and then I burst into tears. To see the result of all that hard work so very emotional and at the same time there was a feeling of absolute triumph. A feeling of yeeesss! He’d done it. He’d done what he set out to do.”
As for the future, Debbi is planning to revisit some of the battlefields she toured with Richard. “I’m going with my sister,” she says quietly, “so that I can lay my ghosts, and then after that I’ll carry on going on my own with fellow enthusiasts.
“It’s something we both enjoyed doing. And there’ll be places we hadn’t been to which I will be able to tell Richard about in that strange sort of way that you do, or at least I do. I still talk to him every day and after 30 – odd years together I’m not going to stop. That’s the way to cope with it. “
Steve Snelling explained how an historical odyssey designed to honour the memory of the Royal Norfolk victims of the wartime atrocity became, in a tragic twist of fate, writer Richard Lane’s remarkable epitaph:
The ghosts of war cast a haunting shadow over the scattered hamlets that freckle the Pas de Calais and the roads leading to Dunkirk. This is hallowed ground, drenched with the blood of men whose myriad last stands helped save an army from irredeemable defeat almost 70 years ago, and is now marked by a rash of cemeteries that bear mute testimony to the horrors of those desperate days.
Everywhere you turn, signs point to a baleful past, of hopeless battles fought and lost, of lives cut tragically short. And nowhere is that sacrifice more poignantly or powerfully felt than in the small Commonwealth War Graves Commission plot tucked behind the church of Le Paradis, some 35 miles south of the broad beaches where an armada of ‘little boats’ rescued more than 300,000 men from the clutches of a triumphant German army.
It was to this place, with its 150 graves including many men from the Royal Norfolk Regiment who were victims not of battle but of one of the Second World War’s most notorious massacres, that Richard and Debbi Lane came in 2004.
Inveterate battlefield tourists, they had visited cemeteries spanning two world wars stretching from Flanders to Normandy and The Somme, but none had touched them more profoundly than that trip to Le Paradis.
“The abiding feeling was one of absolute coldest, “recalls Debbi. “ To stand in front of the memorial to those men, to see the place where they were originally buried and then to visit the cemetery with that wonderful cross was deeply affecting. I felt a cold shiver going right down my spine and I could see that Richard, who was never one to show much emotion, was so moved by it all because he just clammed up. And when he came home, I remember him saying, ‘right, that’s it, I’m going to do a tribute to those boys.”
That decision singled the beginning of an extraordinary personal odyssey, a self-ordained mission of remembrance that has, in a remarkable twist of fate, become his own memorial.
The story behind two strangely connected tragedies unfolds one evening at the Norwich House where Richard Lane had devoted the better part of four years to drafting and re-drafting the book he would not live to see published.
The house resounds with echoes of a martial past. In the entrance hall, a wall serves as a shrine to more than a century of soldiering spanning three generations of Debbi’s family. “We once worked out that if you added Richard and my immediate families together 21 relatives served in the First World War alone,” she says.
It’s a record she plainly proud of just as she is of her cricket-loving husband’s late burgeoning career as a local historian of note. Since selling up the family’s newsagents’ business, he’d embarked on a new career as a writer and researcher. A history of the Plains of Norwich and biography of Anna Gurney were the products of an enquiring enthusiasm for the past that both of them shared.
It was pure pleasure, “ recalls Debbi. “The only breaks Richard ever had were working holidays or wonderful days out that were focused on research.”
In time that passion was extended to their joint fascination in the first and Second World War battlefields where so many of their forbears had fought. It was a journey of historical discovery that would lead to the unprepossessing village of Le Paradis and what Richard has described as the” darker memory” of war- the pre-meditated murder of 97 British prisoners of war, most of them Royal Norfolks, by their SS Captors.
“He’d known about the massacre, “says Debbi. “It had featured in a number of book, but there was no definitive history, no single account that chartered the events that led to it and all the accounts of what followed.”
What particularly irked Richard was a sense that the massacre had come to be overshadowed by a similar atrocity involving men of the Warwickshire Regiment a few miles and a few hours apart at a place called Wormhoudt. “It was as if everyone knew of the events at Wormhoudt, “says Debbi, but hardly anyone outside of Norfolk seemed to know about Le Paradis. That was the spur, to make sure those boys at Le Paradis were not forgotten.”
Four years of hard graft and countless drafts lay ahead as Richard rolled back the decades to unravel the full story of a courageous rear-guard action worthy of a far better end than the men of the 2nd Royal Norfolks faced in May 1940.
In Last Stand at Le Paradis, he compellingly and comprehensively charts the fortunes and misfortunes that befell the battalion during the first nine months of the Second Worlds War, culminating in its heroic attempt to delay the Nazi juggernaut as it smashed its way through Belgium and France.
From early skirmishes in the snow- shrouded Maginot Line to the fighting retreat across Belgium and Northern France, he deploys a small army of eyewitnesses to vividly recall the draining and depleting attempts to shore up a steadily disintegrating defence.
By the fourth week of May, and barely a fortnight after the Wehrmacht had launched its blitzkrieg offensive, the exhausted 2nd Royal Norfolks had been reduced to half its strength and was faced with its sternest test: to resist to the last bullet and the last ounce of strength the enemy’s efforts to crush the shrinking Dunkirk bridgehead and thus destroy all hopes of a successful evacuation.
In Richard’s estimation, it amounted to a ”mission impossible”, yet resulted in a “monumental effort” that succeeded against all the odds in securing a vital breathing space for the so-called Miracle of Dunkirk to be carried out.
Thinly spread across two miles of French countryside freckled with farms and broken by a network of ditches and dykes the remnants of the battalion fought a brave, confused series of actions against a numerically superior enemy supported by tanks, surrendering ground only when forced to do so.
The intensity of the fighting and the determination to stand fast was perhaps best summed up by an order issued by the Royal Norfolk’s acting CO, Major Lisle Ryder to one of his officers to hold his threatened position at all costs – to the last man and the last round” with the added instruction to “keep them back with your pistol if necessary”.
The climax of that doomed struggle came around the Duriez Farm, near the village of Le Cornet Malo. Converted into a strongpoint, its wall cut with loophole and straw bales serving as makeshift sandbags, it was defended by a makeshift force largely consisting of the battalion’s headquarters’ company.
For hours they held out until, as Richard’s account makes clear, they were cut-off and forced to surrender to a company of the SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head) Division commanded by Captain Fritz Knoechlein.
What followed next on May 27, 1940, was, according to Richard, a wretched example “of what happens when the rules, those by which nations seek to civilise the ugly brutality of war, are ignored”.
Stripped of their equipment and herded together, nearly 100 grimy captives were beaten with rifle butts and marched to a meadow of a neighbouring farm owned by Louis Creton. Turning off a dusty road, the dejected and dishevelled column reached a long red- brick barn to be confronted by two machine-guns.
In that moment, the grim realisation of their fate sank in. One of the prisoners, Albert Pooley, called it “one of the nastiest feelings I’ve ever had in my life”.
“I felt as though an icy hand gripped my stomach,” added Pooley. “The guns began to spit fire and even as the front men began to fall I said fiercely “This can’t be. They can’t do this!”
In the bloody mayhem that followed 97 out of the 99 unarmed captives died, but two men, Pooley and Norfolk-born Bill O’Callaghan lived to tell the gruesome tale that would eventually send Knoechlein to the gallows.
The story of the prolonged fight for justice, as seen from both the British and German perspective, is explored in forensic detail in Richard’s gripping narrative history.
Yet, while the trial; that condemned Knoechlein marked the conclusion to one tragedy, another one was about to begin for with contract for the book signed and work under way on the final draft, Richard received the bombshell news that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the bladder.
The first signs of trouble, blood in his urine, had occurred some eight weeks earlier, but initial checks were unclear as to the seriousness of the problem. Amid the uncertainty, Richard focused whole heartedly on Le Paradis and the fulfilment of his mission.
“In hindsight,” says Debbi, “the fact that he had the final draft to work on could hardly have been better timed. It kept him thoroughly occupied at every stage of his treatment. He was absolutely determined to see it through.”
Throughout the ordeal his office remained the hub of operations as it had done throughout the project. “You could never get into his office,” shrugs Debbi. “It was piled high with books and documents and research papers, but he knew where everything was and he was absolutely focused on the book. He spent weeks and weeks poring over books and papers in the regimental museum and The Forum. Everything he found would be written out and catalogued, always in pencil first in old accounts books, in fact anything he could lay his hands on, and then gradually it would be scrubbed out and more writings would appear.”
By August last year the final manuscript with a few omissions, was with the publisher and the editing process was ready to begin. At first Richard had to undergo surgery. “He’d been told he’d have to have his bladder removed,” says Debbi. “The cancer was very advanced and it was the only way of saving him.”
While in hospital, the proof of the book arrived for checking. “’Great he said’,” recalls Debbi, “’ we can check them when we get home’.”.
Tragically, however, Richard never made it home. “He came through the op absolutely brilliantly, “says Debbi. “He was a wonderful patient. Seemed really on the mend, unfortunately he contracted a urinary tract infection and because he was such a fit man his body did not show any signs of the infection until it was too late and they couldn’t save him. He suffered total organ failure.”
Desolation at the loss of her husband of more than 30 years was replaced by a determination to see his work completed. “I had to do it,” she says with a look of steely resolve that seems indicative of her no-nonsense, thoroughly positive approach to life. “People kept asking me what I intended to do and I simply said ‘Richard’s book has to appear’. That was my spur. It had to be done as a memorial to him, a testimony to his four year’s work and a testimony to those Norfolk boys who died at Le Paradis.”
Helped by her niece, Hannah, proofs were read and corrected, bibliography completed, pictures checked, a list of acknowledgements adjusted and a new dedication added in loving memory of a life well spent and thoroughly enjoyed”. “That was Richard’s own saying” smiles Debbi. “That was the theme of his life. He had a damned good life and loved every minute of it.”
What had begun as a tribute to the sacrifice of a group of Royal Norfolk soldiers had become a tribute also to the courageous dedication of one man and to his wife’s determination to ensure his efforts were not in vain.
“When I first saw the book” says Debbi. “I just stood in the hall for about five minutes looking at it and then I burst into tears. To see the result of all that hard work so very emotional and at the same time there was a feeling of absolute triumph. A feeling of yeeesss! He’d done it. He’d done what he set out to do.”
As for the future, Debbi is planning to revisit some of the battlefields she toured with Richard. “I’m going with my sister,” she says quietly, “so that I can lay my ghosts, and then after that I’ll carry on going on my own with fellow enthusiasts.
“It’s something we both enjoyed doing. And there’ll be places we hadn’t been to which I will be able to tell Richard about in that strange sort of way that you do, or at least I do. I still talk to him every day and after 30 – odd years together I’m not going to stop. That’s the way to cope with it. “
Cyril Jolly
A Norfolk man through and through, Cyril Jolly, who was born in 1910, penned the excellent book "The Vengeance of Private Pooley" which is a first-hand account of the massacre, its aftermath and the fight to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice.
Cyril's book reads like an historical novel and was written following hundreds of hours of interviews with both survivors of the massacre - Bill O'Callaghan and Bert Pooley. The interviews took place over a considerable period of time at Bill's home in Dereham. Cyril is photographed on the left above with both Bert (centre) and Bill (right).
Dennis O'Callaghan remembers those visits when Bill, Bert and Cyril would talk long into the night as the author built up a full picture of the lead up to the massacre, the massacre itself and the experiences of the two survivors both during the remainder of the war and after it had finished.
Cyril Jolly served in France with the RAF from October 1939, until evacuated on 17th June, 1940. He later served at HQ Fighter Command as a personal clerk to Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Air Marshal Sir Roderick Hill.
He wrote a number of other Norfolk-based books including: "Henry Blogg of Cromer - The Greatest of the Lifeboatmen," "The Man Who Missed The Massacre," "The Loss of the English Trader: RNLI Coxswain Henry Blogg's Toughest Mission," "SOS - The Story of the Lifeboat Service," and "The Spreading Flame: The Coming of Methodism to Norfolk 1751-1811."
"The Man Who Missed the Massacre" tells the story of Ernest Eric "Strips" Farrow who missed the massacre at Le Paradis because of volunteering to blow up a bridge in the area. Strips is featured on this web site.
Cyril Jolly died in 1994 and a tribute article from the Eastern Daily Press is reproduced below.
A Norfolk man through and through, Cyril Jolly, who was born in 1910, penned the excellent book "The Vengeance of Private Pooley" which is a first-hand account of the massacre, its aftermath and the fight to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice.
Cyril's book reads like an historical novel and was written following hundreds of hours of interviews with both survivors of the massacre - Bill O'Callaghan and Bert Pooley. The interviews took place over a considerable period of time at Bill's home in Dereham. Cyril is photographed on the left above with both Bert (centre) and Bill (right).
Dennis O'Callaghan remembers those visits when Bill, Bert and Cyril would talk long into the night as the author built up a full picture of the lead up to the massacre, the massacre itself and the experiences of the two survivors both during the remainder of the war and after it had finished.
Cyril Jolly served in France with the RAF from October 1939, until evacuated on 17th June, 1940. He later served at HQ Fighter Command as a personal clerk to Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Air Marshal Sir Roderick Hill.
He wrote a number of other Norfolk-based books including: "Henry Blogg of Cromer - The Greatest of the Lifeboatmen," "The Man Who Missed The Massacre," "The Loss of the English Trader: RNLI Coxswain Henry Blogg's Toughest Mission," "SOS - The Story of the Lifeboat Service," and "The Spreading Flame: The Coming of Methodism to Norfolk 1751-1811."
"The Man Who Missed the Massacre" tells the story of Ernest Eric "Strips" Farrow who missed the massacre at Le Paradis because of volunteering to blow up a bridge in the area. Strips is featured on this web site.
Cyril Jolly died in 1994 and a tribute article from the Eastern Daily Press is reproduced below.
Lord Russell of Liverpool
Lord Russell of Liverpool CBE, MC wrote a book "The Scourge of the Swastika - A Short History of Nazi War Crimes" which was published in 1954 and covered a considerable amount of ground including five pages on the Norfolks and the massacre at Le Paradis.
Edward Frederick Langley Russell, 2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool (10th April 1895 – 8th April 1981), known as Langley Russell, was a British soldier, lawyer, historian and writer. He left Cambridge to join the British Army soon after the outbreak of war and served with distinction in the First World War, winning the Military Cross three times. In 1931 he was called to the bar and developed a career in the Judge Advocate's office from the early 1930s.
He became deputy judge advocate general to the British Army of the Rhine in 1945 and was one of the chief legal advisers during war-crimes proceedings of both the Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo Tribunal following the end of the Second World War.
He was forced to resign from his government post over the publication of the book "The Scourge of the Swastika" which was heralded by the proprietor of the Daily Express newspaper Lord Beaverbrook as "the book they tried to ban."
Chapter Two of the book describes how the massacre at Le Paradis was in contravention of the Geneva Convention with regards the treatment of prisoners of war. It has the following to say:
"On 26th May, 1940, sixteen days after Hitler had launched his great offensive against the West, the British Expeditionary force was in general retreat. Some of the British troops were still in the Pas de Calais covering the Channel Ports.
"By nightfall the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Totenkopf Regiment of the SS Totenkopf Division had crossed the La Bassee Canal and taken up a position near Mont Bernechon. The following morning they attacked through Le Cornet-Malo and before noon had reached the hamlet of Le Paradis where remnants of the 2nd Battalion The Norfolk Regiment were still holding out, including Battalion Headquarters.
At 11.30 am, the senior surviving officer, Major Ryder, who was then commanding the battalion received a message from Brigade Headquarters. This told him that the Norfolks were cut off and could therefore expect no assistance or communication from Brigade. By noon, ammunition had run out and further assistance became impossible so Major Ryder called his outlying troops in and decided that an attempt to surrender would be made.
A first attempt was unsuccessful. It had been made by three Norfolks walking out into the open without firearms and holding a white towel. These men, however, were at once shot down by the Germans. A second attempt was then made. This was successful and the surrender was accepted.
From the churchyard and surrounding houses about a hundred survivors were collected and made prisoners by the Germans. A number of seriously wounded were left in the cellars of Battalion Headquarters in the care of the medical officer and the remainder were paraded on the Rue Paradis and marched away in a westerly direction.
After going but a short distance the prisoners were halted and searched. During the search they were subjected to various indignities and severe ill-treatment. Many were hit on the head with the rifle butts of the SS soldiers whose officers were present but did not interfere.
Before giving themselves up the Norfolks had destroyed all their weapons and when searched had only a few scanty personal possessions. These and their equipment were removed from them.
After a considerable interval had elapsed they were marched back along the road and, all unsuspecting, into a small field near a farmhouse. It was here that the massacre was to take place.
Inside the field two machine guns, belonging to No 4 Company of the Totenkopf Battalion had been mounted and the Company Commander, Fritz Knoechlein was standing with a group of officers and NCOs on the roadway by the entrance to the field. On his order the prisoners were marched into the field with their hands behind their heads.
An order to fire was then given by Knoechlein and repeated by the Feldwebel (Sergeant) in command of the section of machine guns.
Both machine guns opened fire simultaneously traversing from right to left along the British column which by then was marching right across the line of fire.
The prisoners were mown down, some of them falling into a small depression in the ground and this apparently saved the lives of the only two survivors, Privates Pooley and O'Callaghan, though both were wounded. When the guns ceased fire the German troops, fixing bayonets, jumped amongst the fallen bodies and finished off all those who showed any signs of life. Officers and NCOs also fired their revolvers and rifles.
The owner of the farm, who had evacuated it during the fighting, returned the following day and found over two hundred empty cartridge cases on the site where the machine guns had been mounted.
The two survivors lay still until nightfall when they crawled out from under the heap of bodies. They lay hidden in a burnt-out farm building for three days where they were found by a French woman who succoured them so far as she was able, despite the great risk to herself, and brought them food from time to time. Collected eventually by a French ambulance they were taken to the hospital at Bailleul where they came once again under German control and were later taken to Germany as prisoners of war.
Private Pooley, owing to the seriousness of his wounds, was repatriated to England in 1943, in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Prisoners-of-War Convention, and when on his return he first told his story to the British military authorities no one would believe him.
Knoechlein's company did not even bother to bury the corpses and spent the night in drunken celebration within a stone's throw of the scene of the crime.
The bodies, which were later buried, were exhumed by the French authorities in 1942 and removed to Paradis churchyard. On exhumation, about fifty bodies were identified; the remainder are buried in unknown graves. It was also established, when the bodies were examined, that a number of the prisoners who had been shot down had already been slightly wounded in the battle, for many still bore traces of bandages on hands, arms and legs.
At the time of the massacre the Totenkopf Division, to which Knoechlein's unit belonged, was in the XVIth Army Corps commanded by a Wehrmacht general. The incident was reported by someone to Corps Headquarters and the Divisional Commander was ordered to make a report. His explanation being unsatisfactory, a questionnaire had been sent to him and an immediate reply demanded.
When the Totenkopf Division left the Corps Area no reply to the questionnaire had been received. A full report was thereupon made by the Corps Commander to higher authority but no further action was ever taken although this document was eventually forwarded to Berlin.
That nothing was done was doubtless due to the personal intervention of no less a person than the Head of the Waffen SS himself, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, for it was surely more than a co-incidence that the Totenkopf Division whilst in billets in Bailleul was, on the 29th May, visited by him.
Lord Russell of Liverpool CBE, MC wrote a book "The Scourge of the Swastika - A Short History of Nazi War Crimes" which was published in 1954 and covered a considerable amount of ground including five pages on the Norfolks and the massacre at Le Paradis.
Edward Frederick Langley Russell, 2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool (10th April 1895 – 8th April 1981), known as Langley Russell, was a British soldier, lawyer, historian and writer. He left Cambridge to join the British Army soon after the outbreak of war and served with distinction in the First World War, winning the Military Cross three times. In 1931 he was called to the bar and developed a career in the Judge Advocate's office from the early 1930s.
He became deputy judge advocate general to the British Army of the Rhine in 1945 and was one of the chief legal advisers during war-crimes proceedings of both the Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo Tribunal following the end of the Second World War.
He was forced to resign from his government post over the publication of the book "The Scourge of the Swastika" which was heralded by the proprietor of the Daily Express newspaper Lord Beaverbrook as "the book they tried to ban."
Chapter Two of the book describes how the massacre at Le Paradis was in contravention of the Geneva Convention with regards the treatment of prisoners of war. It has the following to say:
"On 26th May, 1940, sixteen days after Hitler had launched his great offensive against the West, the British Expeditionary force was in general retreat. Some of the British troops were still in the Pas de Calais covering the Channel Ports.
"By nightfall the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Totenkopf Regiment of the SS Totenkopf Division had crossed the La Bassee Canal and taken up a position near Mont Bernechon. The following morning they attacked through Le Cornet-Malo and before noon had reached the hamlet of Le Paradis where remnants of the 2nd Battalion The Norfolk Regiment were still holding out, including Battalion Headquarters.
At 11.30 am, the senior surviving officer, Major Ryder, who was then commanding the battalion received a message from Brigade Headquarters. This told him that the Norfolks were cut off and could therefore expect no assistance or communication from Brigade. By noon, ammunition had run out and further assistance became impossible so Major Ryder called his outlying troops in and decided that an attempt to surrender would be made.
A first attempt was unsuccessful. It had been made by three Norfolks walking out into the open without firearms and holding a white towel. These men, however, were at once shot down by the Germans. A second attempt was then made. This was successful and the surrender was accepted.
From the churchyard and surrounding houses about a hundred survivors were collected and made prisoners by the Germans. A number of seriously wounded were left in the cellars of Battalion Headquarters in the care of the medical officer and the remainder were paraded on the Rue Paradis and marched away in a westerly direction.
After going but a short distance the prisoners were halted and searched. During the search they were subjected to various indignities and severe ill-treatment. Many were hit on the head with the rifle butts of the SS soldiers whose officers were present but did not interfere.
Before giving themselves up the Norfolks had destroyed all their weapons and when searched had only a few scanty personal possessions. These and their equipment were removed from them.
After a considerable interval had elapsed they were marched back along the road and, all unsuspecting, into a small field near a farmhouse. It was here that the massacre was to take place.
Inside the field two machine guns, belonging to No 4 Company of the Totenkopf Battalion had been mounted and the Company Commander, Fritz Knoechlein was standing with a group of officers and NCOs on the roadway by the entrance to the field. On his order the prisoners were marched into the field with their hands behind their heads.
An order to fire was then given by Knoechlein and repeated by the Feldwebel (Sergeant) in command of the section of machine guns.
Both machine guns opened fire simultaneously traversing from right to left along the British column which by then was marching right across the line of fire.
The prisoners were mown down, some of them falling into a small depression in the ground and this apparently saved the lives of the only two survivors, Privates Pooley and O'Callaghan, though both were wounded. When the guns ceased fire the German troops, fixing bayonets, jumped amongst the fallen bodies and finished off all those who showed any signs of life. Officers and NCOs also fired their revolvers and rifles.
The owner of the farm, who had evacuated it during the fighting, returned the following day and found over two hundred empty cartridge cases on the site where the machine guns had been mounted.
The two survivors lay still until nightfall when they crawled out from under the heap of bodies. They lay hidden in a burnt-out farm building for three days where they were found by a French woman who succoured them so far as she was able, despite the great risk to herself, and brought them food from time to time. Collected eventually by a French ambulance they were taken to the hospital at Bailleul where they came once again under German control and were later taken to Germany as prisoners of war.
Private Pooley, owing to the seriousness of his wounds, was repatriated to England in 1943, in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Prisoners-of-War Convention, and when on his return he first told his story to the British military authorities no one would believe him.
Knoechlein's company did not even bother to bury the corpses and spent the night in drunken celebration within a stone's throw of the scene of the crime.
The bodies, which were later buried, were exhumed by the French authorities in 1942 and removed to Paradis churchyard. On exhumation, about fifty bodies were identified; the remainder are buried in unknown graves. It was also established, when the bodies were examined, that a number of the prisoners who had been shot down had already been slightly wounded in the battle, for many still bore traces of bandages on hands, arms and legs.
At the time of the massacre the Totenkopf Division, to which Knoechlein's unit belonged, was in the XVIth Army Corps commanded by a Wehrmacht general. The incident was reported by someone to Corps Headquarters and the Divisional Commander was ordered to make a report. His explanation being unsatisfactory, a questionnaire had been sent to him and an immediate reply demanded.
When the Totenkopf Division left the Corps Area no reply to the questionnaire had been received. A full report was thereupon made by the Corps Commander to higher authority but no further action was ever taken although this document was eventually forwarded to Berlin.
That nothing was done was doubtless due to the personal intervention of no less a person than the Head of the Waffen SS himself, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, for it was surely more than a co-incidence that the Totenkopf Division whilst in billets in Bailleul was, on the 29th May, visited by him.