On 11 May 1940, the Regimental parties making up the 1st Armoured Division Advanced Party left their respective camps heading for Southampton.[i]
The remaining units of the 1st Armoured Division were making final preparations for the move overseas, packing tanks and prepping transport. The men, wherever possible, had been sent on three- or four-days leave. One man, Jack Merewood, of the Queen’s Bays, remembered that he was ‘…sent home on a ten-day embarkation leave, which meant we would soon be going abroad, though we weren’t told where we would be going and when.’[ii]
In Belgium, the 12th Lancers were relieved by the 4/7th Dragoon Guards at Wavre, the 15/19th Lancers at Louvain, and the 13/18th Hussars between, each with a bridgehead over the river Dyle[iii]. Both I Corps and II Corps were taking up positions on the river Dyle, the 3rd Division took over the Louvain[iv] area from the Belgian 10éme Division, in Panterie, 1st Division the centre and the 2nd Division the right, north of Wavre[v]. The positions were ‘some forty-five miles from Maastricht and about 150 miles from the Channel Ports’[vi] which were vital to the supply of the BEF. By the time night fell, ‘most of the BEF and the 1ére Armée were still marching to the Dyle’[vii].
The Germans had seized a bridgehead at Maastricht, with the 4. Panzer-Division crossing at 0330 hours, having turned and ‘made useless’[viii] the major Belgian defences, the line of the River Meuse and Albert Canal, and was over both in force. Général Prioux had received news that the fort at Eban Emael had fallen and that the Germans had reached Tongres, approximately 77 km to Prioux’s left, the Belgian Army had withdrawn behind the Dyle Line; on the BEF front the situation remained quiet[ix], with a good portion of the BEF still in France[x]. The major activity in the sector was spent in bringing units forward and organising the defences, all the while expecting attacks by German aircraft[xi].
The 12th Lancers made contact with German horsed cavalry which, after being thwarted, resulted in the capture of a horse[xii]. When the vanguard elements of German motorcyclists arrived in Diest, at a recently destroyed bridge, they were ‘grievously penalised’[xiii]. At nightfall the Lancers withdrew, in agreement with the Belgians, with one vehicle lost, this was the truck carrying the No. 3 Wireless Set, thereby cutting communications with GHQ[xiv].
[i] WO 167/445, War Diary, Queen’s Bays, May-June 1940, The National Archives (UK); WO 167/449 War Diary 5th Royal Tank Regiment, May 1940, The National Archives (UK); WO 167/448 War Diary 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, May 1940, The National Archives (UK); WO 167/447, War Diary 9th Lancers May-June 1940, The National Archives (UK); WO 167/446, War Diary 10th Hussars May-June 1940, The National Archives (UK)
[ii] Merewood, J, To War with the Bays, 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards, 1996, p.24
[iii] Stewart, P.F., The History of The XII Royal Lancers, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1950, Regimental-Histories_1715-1945 Stewart_0003.jpg – 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum (9th12thlancersmuseum.org), p. 351-2.
[iv] Montgomery, B. L., The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Collins, 1958, p. 60.
[v] Pallud, Jean Paul, Blitzkrieg in the West: Then and Now, After the Battle, 1991, p. 96.
[vi] Masefield, John, The Twenty-Five Days, Pen & Sword Military, 2004, p. 65.
[vii] Forczyk, Robert Case Red: The Collapse of France, Osprey, 2017, p. 163.
[viii] Masefield, John, The Twenty-Five Days, Pen & Sword Military, 2004, p. 65
[ix] Horne, Alistair, To Lose a Battle: France 1940, MacMillan, 1969, p. 271.
[x] Forczyk, Robert Case Red: The Collapse of France, Osprey, 2017, p. 164
[xi] Pallud, Jean Paul, Blitzkrieg in the West: Then and Now, After the Battle, 1991, p. 165
[xii] Stewart, P.F., The History of The XII Royal Lancers, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1950, Regimental-Histories_1715-1945 Stewart_0003.jpg – 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum (9th12thlancersmuseum.org), p. 353
[xiii] Blaxland, Gregory, Destination Dunkirk: The Story of Gort’s Army, William Kimber & Company, London, 1973, p. 78; Stewart, P.F., The History of The XII Royal Lancers, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1950, Regimental-Histories_1715-1945 Stewart_0003.jpg – 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum (9th12thlancersmuseum.org), p. 353
[xiv] Blaxland, Gregory, Destination Dunkirk: The Story of Gort’s Army, William Kimber & Company, London, 1973, p. 78; Stewart, P.F., The History of The XII Royal Lancers, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1950, Regimental-Histories_1715-1945 Stewart_0003.jpg – 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum (9th12thlancersmuseum.org), p. 353
The 1st Armoured Division (UK) 
