Recollections of Captain Francis Barclay, 2nd Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment
Recollections of Captain Francis Barclay, 2nd Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment. On the 9th May, the first thing that happened was the Phantom Reconnaissance Forces of our own which were largely composed of light armoured cars from the 17/21 Lancers-whose job it was to get early information of the approaching enemy –started to withdraw. They’d come back through our positions, over the bridge that was planned for blowing. They told us that Namur had ceased to hold out and that Liege would fall jolly soon, and that the Germans would probably arrive on the River Dyle the evening of the following day. So we dug in our positions-in fact, the Germans appeared the following day. The vanguard of their advance guard consisted of motorbikes and sidecars mounted with machine guns. We knocked out about five of these, and then of course there was a build-up which one could see in the distance, and eventually I got the order to pull back over the river. Barclay will be known to many ...