Leaving Paris 1940

What follows is a near verbatim transcription of a letter written by my grandfather, Ronald "Jack" Kellam to a friend in South Africa on 26th June 1940 shortly after he arrived back in Britain having fled Paris, where he had been working as an accountant.

"Win" is my grandmother and "her cub" is my father (the nickname doubtlessly arises from my Grandfathers passion for scouting).
Towards the end of the war, my grandfather got his wish to join up and he served as a colonel "the Americans sent colonels, so they had to make me one") assisting in the reestablishment of civilian banking and business life in Italy and Germany.

My dear Eric,

I arrived safely in Sussex on Sunday morning and your letter asking for news of me reached Burgess Hill the following day. I am afraid that I have neglected my correspondence very badly this last month or two but you can well imagine that life in Paris was getting more and more hectic and the possibilities of sitting down calmly to report to one’s friends correspondingly rare. I believe that all your letters to me arrived normally and I see from my diary that the last was received as recently as the 30th May. About that time I was putting in the whole of my spare time with the French Scouts looking after refugees from Belgium and the North and it was a truly heart-breaking experience - more sad even than the scenes which accompanied the flight from Paris in which I later participated. How many times have I thanked God recently that Win and her cub had remained safely at home in England. The only bright spot in the horrors of the first evacuation was the wonderful courage and faith of the poor folk whom we were trying to help. After days of walking, with little food and no sleep, bombed from the air as they trudged Southward and sometimes machine-gunned, pressing on into the unknown with all their worldly possessions in ruins behind them they were just magnificent. Despite their suffering and the pains they still tried to help those whose burdens were heavier than their own and never once did I hear them curse or blaspheme.

After the rush from the North things quietened down for a bit and we all seemed to be holding our breath to watch the battle of the (Unreadable) and the soul-stirring epic of Dunkirk. I had by then filled up my home with a family of Belgians whom I had known in Antwerp and was beginning to settle down to regular meals and an ordered life again, little did my guests imagine that within one short week, thanks to the treachery of their King, they would once more have to take to the road.

My own personal friends and myself still held unlimited confidence in the power of the French Army to stem the onslaught of the German mechanised columns. Even after they had crossed the Somme and fought their way to the gates of Rouen we fondly imagined that Paris could still be held and I think we all expected a similar miracle to that of 1914 when the hordes were thrown back from the very gates of the capital. The week-end of June 8/9 most of our French staff left us - trains were still running and they had all found some relative - wife or aged mother - whom they wished to transfer to a place of greater safety. We had nothing to say as air-raid warnings were becoming more and more frequent and the anti-aircraft guns were almost continuously in action although very few bombs were dropped and the actual damage in Paris was hardly noticeable. By Monday June 10 our office staff was reduced to four Britishers, one Swiss and a French lady typist. Needless to say very little work was done and the stampede had already taken alarming proportions; we heard that thousands were besieging the main line railway stations and the railway companies had ceased issuing tickets. Tuesday things looked no better and we heard that the Germans had already crossed the Seine so we decided that it was time to make tracks towards the Coast. We went home that night (my Belgians had already left for the South), packed a few things necessary for the voyage and despite occasional bursts from the anti-aircraft batteries had a good sleep. In the morning I drove over to my partners home and about mid-day we in our turn said good bye to our homes and all the treasures so patiently accumulated and hit out for the Coast. You will have heard the tragic story of that great exodus from the daily papers.

We had two cars, in mine was one of our British assistants and the French typist plus as much luggage as the groaning springs and bulging tyres would support and in the other was my partner Hubble and a family of four Belgian friends from Antwerp to whom he had given shelter in his Paris home.

The roads were blocked with traffic and for hours we proceeded at a rate of one or two hundred yards per hour. Towards evening in a downpour of rain, I managed to turn off into a side-road where we made better progress but later the military turned us back onto the road which we had left and by mid-night we were just twenty three miles from home.

We managed to find parking space on the grass verge and from then until about 3.30 a.m. we did our best to sleep sitting up in the car We started again at three 30 a.m. and by daylight had covered something like five more miles but I then found our way into side roads running more or less in the direction we required and from then on our progress was comparatively good. The cars, overloaded and underoiled, behaved splendidly and never once did they give any trouble. Lucky for us, as one could not begin to count the wrecks which were stranded on each side of the road or more often pushed unceremoniously into the ditch. After two more nights on the road we ultimately arrived at Nantes where we arranged with a farmer to camp in a concrete floored shed about ten miles from the town. The French government by then had moved to Tours but we still had faith and actually found a furnished house in the city which we rented for three months, cash down, meaning to establish our office there until it was possible to return to Paris. Not that I intended to stay once everything was arranged as I had decided that there would not be enough work for us all and I could serve my country better by getting home to join up in whatever service would take me.

On Sunday June 16 however, we were all advised to make for home as best we could. The consul introduced us to some Navy people who were proceeding up the coast and, abandonning our Belgians and the French typist in the house we had rented, we took the Navy people aboard and beat it again. Then followed two hectic days of excitment the full details of which I must give you when the war is over* followed by a passage to England in a two thousand ton collier - and so here we are.

My future movements are all unknown. I am hoping at last to get into one of the fighting Services but with “reserved occupation” hanging over my head, my grey hair, which Win says is now white, and my spectacles I shall probably find myself pushing a pen in one of the ministries. As soon as I have anything fixed I will write you again.

Meanwhile the war goes on. For many folk here in England, it has only just started - the more Hitler spreads himself, the weaker he becomes and his losses have ben enormous. I am still as optimistic as ever - not as to our final victory for that is a dead certainty - we still have the trump cards and cannot lose, but I honestly believe that the german collapse is nearer than most of us dare hope for.

Win joins me in every good wish to you all. I found both her and her cub in fine form - of course he did not remember me but he had heard so much that he claimed me as his Daddy the moment we met and we were good friends from the word go.

Yours aye,

Ronald

*There is a note in the margin written by my mother at this point which fills in the details not provided at the time of how jack came to sail to England on a 2000 ton collier.

"The British Embassy Naval Attache provided them with pistols and issued instructions to divert as many coal-bearing ships from Lorient to Britain (as possible). Pausing only to eat a seven course dinner consisting entirely of fish (no trains to take it up to Paris and, presumably none to bring anything down by way of variety), his friend Hubble seized a Norweigan ship at gunpoint. They all ended up in a crowded Fal estuary in Cornwall. "

Presumably he ran the risk that the French (or occupying German) authorities would, if an attempt to seize a boat failed, treat them as pirates.

Other anecdotes about this period in my grandfathers life tell us that, before leaving, their maid buried the vacuum cleaner in the garden to prevent it from being looted.

My grandfather’s Paris house was utilised by the North Paris Gestapo as, amongst other things, an officer’s mess and a dresser which is now in my home was used by them as a bar.

Assuming the Naval attache kept his promise, the car which carried my grandfather from Paris is now at the bottom of the Seine estuary.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.