A school boy's escape from Antwerp, May 1940

This record was written by my dad, William Hall Stevens (b1926) and is based entirely on his memory, the dates and journey times being subject to a degree of error, which he does not believe to be material.

In pre-war days, the sight of an aeroplane was worthy of comment. Antwerp airport was some twenty or so minutes bicycle ride from where we lived and on some occasions I rode over with a friend or two on the off chance that we might see a plane landing or taking off. On a lucky day we would see a twin-engine biplane passenger aircraft land on the grass runway and some dozen or so passengers disembark. On some occasions we saw a single engine monoplane performing aerobatics over the airfield. Such was the novelty of aircraft in those days.

My father was Assistant Manger of the Antwerp branch of the Westminster Bank which was one, if not the premier bank in the town. At the end of April 1940, he was sent to carry out a snap audit of the Bank’s branches in Paris, Bordeaux, Marseilles and one other, the location of which escapes me. England and France were at war. Belgium was not.

I woke up very early on the morning of 10th May to the sound of aircraft flying overhead. I jumped out of bed to view the spectacle of several aircraft in the air together flying in formation. They were of a type I had only seen in magazines: single engine monoplanes with under slung wings. I then heard explosions, not realising they had anything to do with these aircraft. The next thing that I was aware of was my mother rushing into my room telling me to get away from the window, gather my clothes and go downstairs and lie beneath the dining room table. She then ran upstairs and did the same with my sister Peggy. After a while all extraneous noises ceased and my mother turned on the radio in the sitting room. After some time all became clear: the Germans had started the invasion of Belgium and Holland. It was still very early in the morning. My sister and I were under strict instructions to stay with mother at all times. Where she went, we went. As soon as the bank opened we went to see the Manager, a Mr Moller to find out where precisely my father was. Apparently he was still in Bordeaux. Mother knew full well that the moment he heard the news of the invasion he would abandon his duties and make for home.

Apart from Mr Moller and his wife and our family there were three other British families associated with the bank: Mr Gillan, his wife and daughter, Mr Cornwell his wife and son and Mr Clay who was a bachelor. Mr Gillan, who was an inveterate chain smoker and of a very stressed out disposition and also somewhat absent minded, took it upon himself to take us under his wing whilst my father was still adrift. My mother nonetheless still went her own way. She was always appreciative of his good intentions in these difficult times.

As we kept up to date with the German advance, we could get no news whatsoever of my father’s whereabouts, we started to make preparations to vacate our rented house. Every day we went to the bank to see if they had managed to contact my father. The problem was that all telephone communications to France were taken up by the armed forces and those to England were purely on a priority basis for government and diplomatic contacts. The Bank’s Head Office in London was also trying to locate him. Attempts were also being made through the Consulate General. Such were our activities over several days. My personal satisfaction was that I was not returning to school.

In the meantime we monitored the German advance towards Antwerp which did not seem as swift as in other parts, but was nevertheless causing my mother and the other British families some concern. The day came when we arrived at the bank to see Mr Moller to find out whether he had been able to ascertain my father’s whereabouts to discover that he had not yet arrived and no message had been received from him. Mother decided to go and see him at his home on the outskirts of the town. We found the house locked, bolted and shuttered. He had obviously decided to evacuate and make his way to England. We then immediately made our way to the Consulate General only to find that the Consul General had also left. We were told that the previous afternoon a Royal Navy cruiser had arrived in the port to evacuate all British nationals and that we should have been contacted to tell us the place and time to board the vessel. By this time the vessel had long since departed. It is the only time I ever saw my mother in tears. The only other persons we guessed were on board were the Anglican vicar and his wife, because we found the vicarage and church abandoned and deserted. The very people who owed us a duty of care, whether or not my father was with us decamped in cowardly haste. We then returned home to pack such valuables as we had and took them to the bank’s vaults for safekeeping. Still no news of my father.

Whether it was the following day or the day after, I do not know, but Mr Gillan came round to see us, as he did every day at about 10.30am and asked mother whether she could hear a rumbling sound. She replied that she could hear thunder in the distance. “That’s not thunder, that’s artillery” was the reply. It was decided that we should move out of Antwerp and Mr Gillan contacted the other families to tell them to congregate at our house at twelve noon, and start making our way in convoy to England. To that end my Aunt Julia (Mother’s sister) came over to discuss arrangements to put the house contents into store. We then set to making sandwiches etc. for we did not know when or where the next meal was coming from.

At about 11am a taxi drew up to the front door and my father all but fell out of it. He looked somewhat dishevelled, but we were so glad to see him. Our departure was put back to about 1.30pm to allow him a couple of hours sleep. It was decided to make our way to Ostend in the hope that some ferries would still be running to Dover. That entailed crossing the river Scheldt, either by the one tunnel or by a ferry about four miles upstream. My father decided to try for the tunnel first and if there was undue congestion, we could easily turn around and make for the ferry. As it turned out there was no queue of vehicles at the tunnel and we made good progress to Ostend. On the way we called at the bank where my father drew out a substantial amount of money. On arrival we all managed to book into the same hotel and father went off to enquire about the ferries. The situation was quite confused. We spent the next day in Ostend and still got no definite news of the ferries. The following day, my father came to the conclusion that it was unlikely that we would see a ferry in the near future and we decided to head for Dunkirk. We had lunch in the hotel and set off for the frontier with France. We joined a queue of vehicles some miles from the border. The border guards closed the frontier at 6pm as usual so we spent the night in the cars. In the meantime father attached a Union Jack pennant to the bonnet of the car thinking it might prove helpful should we come amidst British troops. The following day we crossed the frontier and made for Dunkirk. Here too the Consul had departed and there was precious little information on ferries. We thus made our way along the coast calling at Boulogne and Calais, with the same results, and arrived at Le Harvre. I’m not sure whether this took one or two days.

On arrival in Le Havre, we booked into a hotel for the night with a view to finding out about ferries the following morning. That night, we were subjected to an air raid of some ferocity and could hear bombs dropping some distance away. Very soon we were summoned by hotel staff to vacate our rooms immediately as the hotel roof was on fire. We dressed quickly, gathered our possessions and met in the downstairs lobby. We could see a glare in the distant sky and found out in the morning that the whole port area was on fire. We made for the cars and departed, as there would be no ferries leaving Le Havre.

We headed for Rouen which, according to our maps, was the nearest location of a bridge across the river Seine. There was no end of traffic going in the same direction as us. We got tied up amongst refugees walking, some on horses and carts, others in cars and lorries and progress was desperately slow. We proceeded in this way for some time when we came across a British Military Policeman directing traffic at the junction with a very minor road. As we approached, he stopped us and asked to see our passports. My father explained who we were in the convoy of four cars and that we were making for Rouen in order to cross the river. He told us that the German tanks were expected there in hours and the French would probably blow up the bridges before we got there. He told us to turn right into the small lane and stop for a few minutes, as he did not want the French refugees following us. He then told us there was a ferry at the bottom of the road that would take us across the river.

We did as he asked, and joined yet another long queue of vehicles. We had some sandwiches for lunch. The queue moved only a short distance in an hour, so father and I walked own the road to find the landing stage. It was quite a long way down. The ferry carried eight cars per crossing and father timed a round trip. On the way back to our cars we counted the number of cars in the queue, and allowing for the ferry working hours he calculated that we would still be on this side of the river overnight, all next day, all the following night and over sometime the next afternoon. And so it transpired. Dad conferred with the other families in our convoy and decided to empty some suitcases and then walk back with Mr Gillan, Mr Cornwell and myself down to the ferry offices, which adjoined the village shops and bought sufficient bread, butter, sandwich fillings and bottles of water to last us until we crossed over. It was as well that we did, as others had the same idea and the shop would no doubt soon be running short of supplies. Whenever we moved we did so by pushing the cars, as my father did not reckon the car batteries would last out by constantly starting the engines.

Having duly crossed the Seine, father reckoned we could have a little breathing space, as the German army would have to regroup to cross the river. So we headed for Honfleur with a view to staying a couple of nights in a hotel to recover from two nights and three days in the cars. We all badly needed a bath and a good meal.

On arrival at Honfleur, we could not find a hotel with a spare room. We saw some British servicemen in the resort and father approached a Company Sergeant Major to see if he knew where we might find some accommodation for our party. He reckoned there was none to be had in the area, so offered to put us up in the local village hall, though he could only supply us with two blankets each and we would have to sleep on the floor. As it was getting late, we were grateful for even this offer. He then turned out the army cooks and instructed them to provide us with a good meal. As we were all so tired sleeping on the floor was no problem. Next day, after a good army breakfast, we set off for St. Malo, hoping that we would have more luck with the ferries.

On arrival at St. Malo, we booked into a very good hotel and again we were all accommodated. Father made contact with the British Consul, who at least was still in his post. The consular offices were above the offices of the British shipping company that ran the ferries between the town and Southampton. Father had occasional meetings with both consul and the company’s manager who kept him informed of the latest news regarding the ferry movements. It appeared that in the prevailing conditions the company’s Southampton office only advised him when a ship would not be arriving. I cannot recall whether we were in St. Malo for three days or more, but one evening my father instructed everyone to be ready to leave the hotel early the following morning, and to say nothing to anyone and to behave as we had to date.

The next morning he called everyone to the hotel lobby, went to the reception to pay the bill and we all went to our cars. We drove to the dock area and parked in a precise position he had been given by the company’s manager. Shortly afterwards we all got out of our cars and proceeded through customs and returned to a position near the cars. When the ferry docked we were level with the ship’s gangway when it was lowered. When the few passengers had disembarked we were first on board and on to our cabins. The ship sailed that evening packed to the gunnels with escaping passengers. We docked in Southampton the following morning. What day it was I cannot remember.

After passing through customs, father rang the bank’s head office and we boarded the train to London. On arrival he phoned head office again and was told to take us all to the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square, where rooms had been booked for us all. We stayed there two nights and during the days we went shopping to replace our rather grubby clothes. Fortunately clothes rationing had not stared. That came into being about two months later. Father went to Head Office to be given extended leave pending appointments to branches somewhere in the United Kingdom. It appeared that Mr Moller had reported to Head Office several days previously and when asked where the other British members of the bank’s staff were, he could give no answer. He was then told that the bank had no further use for his services, and he was retired on a very reduced pension. What happened to the Consuls and in particular to the Consul General I have no idea, but given the integrity of the Foreign Service, they no doubt got some plum posting within the service.

On leaving London we went to live in Winslow and were given shelter by my Uncle Dennis and Auntie Gertie and their daughters. They were very kind to us and made us very welcome notwithstanding the considerable inconvenience our presence must have caused them.

After about a fortnight my mother and father went to London to find out about my father’s posting, which was the Cavendish Square branch of the bank, and then to find furnished rented accommodation for at least the duration of the war. My father’s future beyond Cavendish Square was uncertain to say the least. After about a week they returned to Winslow and we then left to start a new life in a bungalow in Foxley Lane, Purley, Surrey.

On hearing the news of the invasion of Belgium, my father left Bordeaux to head for the Belgian frontier and Antwerp. Such was the confusion in France that no one seemed to know if and when trains would run so, using a mixture of train and bus transport he zigzagged through France to reach Paris. The only criteria was that the transport headed somewhere between NW and NE and preferably to a destination he had heard of, however remotely. How long it took him to reach Paris I do not know. On arrival, the manager of the Paris branch, who had a number of influential contacts, undertook to assist him onward on his journey.

The biggest problem he had was to cross the French-Belgian frontier which had been closed to all except military traffic. He got no help whatever from the French officials. However a British army colonel undertook to smuggle him across the frontier in a troop train carrying British army personnel into Belgium. In due course, travelling at night, he got off the train in Belgium and he, again, had to use whatever means of transport to reach Antwerp, in much the same way as he had travelled through France.

Although he made several attempts to telephone home and the bank, all communication was reserved for the military and he was not able to make contact.

He arrived in Antwerp as stated above, having travelled all the way from Bordeaux without sleeping in a bed for fear of missing some potential transport which might travel overnight.

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