Arthur ‘Dick’ Sutton’s escape from St. Valery 1940 and Later.

My father, Arthur ‘Dick’ Gascoigne Sutton, born in 1910 in Featherstone, Yorkshire, first joined the army in about 1927 at Pontefract Barracks, Yorkshire. He was in The King’s Own Light Infantry Division and stayed in the army until the end of WWII. He was a wireless operator and a listed, working radio ham (GDAGH) all his life. I have his contact cards from all over the world.

In September 1939, Signalman 2319499 Sutton was assigned to Room 44, 2 Company, 1st Holding Battalion, Albert Wines, Catterick Camp, Yorkshire. He was attached to the 51st Highland Division, Signal Section, Anti Tank Regiment R.A., B.E.F. and sent to Normandy, France in April 1940.

He was captured in St.Valery—en—Caux , in June 1940. He wrote an account in later years of the battle of the night of June 10th and during the day of June 11th and the early hours of June 12th. This is part of the account.
As the Germans were marching the prisoners along the road to Bethune my father and his friend ‘Jock Mc’ (possibly from Aberdeen area) managed to evade the German guards and hide themselves in a waist high cornfield, where they stayed until nightfall. Just before their escape, my father managed to drop a piece of paper on the road saying “Am OK. Dick”, addressed to his parents in Featherstone and fortunately a padre picked it up and sent it to them. I have a newspaper cutting which details this.

Eventually they took refuse in a farmhouse, near St.Pol, where they were befriended by a kind and very courageous family, by the name of Mme Yvonne and M. Barbier Vigneron, who hid them at great risk to themselves, in their barn at their farmhouse in Sautricourt les Hernicourt, by St. Pol sur Ternoise, Pas de Calais, Normandy.

I have a photo of Yvonne with her baby Nicole taken there in June 1940. With help, my father obtained a blank identity card from the local town hall and forged a rubber stamp for it, using the rubber heel from his boot. My father then took on the French identity of Andre Mouton, which served him well during the following months hiding in France. Thankfully, my father taught himself basic French after leaving school using a Teach yourself French book.

Eventually, around October 1940 they reached Marseilles, where the Rev. Donald C. Caskie, in charge of a British refugee hostel there, wrote to his parents:-
“Dick is in North Africa!" Casablanca was his last postmark.
I have photographs of him in the desert in Egypt by a pyramid and in the market place. I also have his hotel bills and doctors’ bills, as he caught sand-fly fever on the boat. He also bought my mother (then his fiancée back home) an Egyptian Slave bangle which she wore all her life.

Then came a dramatic message for Dick’s parents, covering weeks of adventure from Africa to Gibraltar. He eventually made it back to Featherstone in December 1940.

Dick’s next instruction was to convey secret packages etc. leaving Glasgow on 15th September 1941 on a ship “R.235”, I believe, bound for Malta. He was a corporal employed as a signalman, wireless operator (With the Royal Corp of Signals) as a secret service mission. He told us of his experiences in Malta, meeting up with his brother, Geoffrey Sutton, a sub-lieutenant in the Navy, on the ship Penelope, berthed in Malta. He recounts how, one night the hotel he was staying in was partially bombed, but he managed to sleep through it all.

Many years later, after my father’s death in 1976, my mother visited Malta and reminisced in the streets and buildings where my father was in the war.
She bought a postcard of the Auberge de Castile est Leon; formerly British Military Headquarters back with her. We still have my father’s bills from that time.

While on leave in April 1941, my father married my mother, Mirabel Darwin at Austerfield, near Doncaster, Yorkshire. I was born in June 1942, when my father was again, in North Africa. I was three weeks old when thankfully he returned home.
Three weeks later me moved to Bletchly, where my father worked at the Enigma Code Centre in Bletchly Park as a wireless operator. We stayed in that area, in Evenly near Brackley, Northamptonshire, where my mother was housekeeper to a Major Jackson’s family and also in St. Alban’s where my mother was housekeeper for a private girl’s boarding school called “Appletrees”. I can just remember that!
We are still in touch with friends we made then.

In 1946-47 we moved to Featherstone near Pontefract, Yorkshire, where my mother nursed my father’s invalid mother. At this time my father worked as a civilian radio operator at Doncaster Airport. My sister Wendy Sutton was born in Featherstone in 1948.

In 1951 we moved back to my mother’s parents in Austerfield near Doncaster and my father got a job at nearby Finningly Aerodrome, Nottinghamshire as a radio operator.

In 1970 he was transferred to R.A.F. Sealand, near Chester and we came to live in Greasby.
My father died in 1976 and my mother passed away last year.
My father wrote all his wartime experiences in the 1950’s but unfortunately, I took the only copy to school to show my history teacher and left it on the school bus. So I feel I have to replace it as I promised. I believe all facts to be true. I have many letters, photographs and newspaper cuttings from that time.

Four years ago I took my mother on an escorted tour of the St. Valery region and tried to get in touch with French family who befriended my father and also wrote to the mayor for further details, but did not get a reply. I have original letters from her family.
I also wrote to Jock in 1967 at an address (possibly his sisters) on a letter written by him to my father after the war. We did meet him once coincidentally on a holiday in Cleethorpes in the 50’s but have not heard from him since.

My mother bought a “withdrawn from stock” book from the local library called “Return to St. Valery”, by Derek Lang, a captain with the 51st Highland Division. It gives first hand account and verifies much of my father’s story. All these accounts which makes us realise the sacrifices made by so many for future generations and how important it is to record it. My mother wrote to the author in the 1980’s and received a very nice letter from him which I still have.

If anyone has any relevant information for me regarding this location and period of the war I would be grateful for details to pass on to my family and interested readers. Likewise if I can be of any help to interested parties, I would be pleased to do so.

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