A thread with @Dunkirk_1940 on the massacre at Le Paradis.
On 27 May 1940 Units of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were desperately fighting to hold open a 'corridor' so the bulk of the BEF could move unimpeded back towards the coast around Dunkirk and evacuation.

On this map you can see the strongpoints manned by the BEF on the western flank of that corridor. E.g Hazebrouck, Cassel, Wormhoudt etc.
Le Paradis is a small village located near Merville (circled)

Holding the line in this area on the River Lys against the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the SS Totenkopf Division was the British 4th Infantry Brigade consisting of 2/Royal Norfolk, 1/Royal Scots and 1/8th Lancashire Fusiliers.

The day before on 26 May the Norfolks had established their Battalion HQ at Duries Farm. Their orders were to hold the position to the last man.

During the heavy fighting the Companies of the Battalion began to be overrun & virtually ceased to exist. As an example, as 'A' Coy fell back only 1 officer and 6 men reached the farm from a nominal strength of 184.

It was at the farm on 27 May that the Royal Norfolks were to make their final stand. The lads began to knock loop holes through the walls to fire through. The location of those loop holes can still be clearly seen to this day.

The farm came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire and the CO, Major Lisle Ryder, ordered the remaining men to make for the comparative cover of a solid, brick cow shed to the rear of the farm house.

The Battalion had been given permission now to withdraw but they were surrounded and the cover of darkness was still many hours away. Ryder told his men they could fight on or surrender and decided on a show of hands to decide. The decision taken was to surrender.

A dirty white sheet was found and tied to the barrel of a rifle and waved through the rear door of the cow shed. The firing ceased and men began to venture out but suddenly came under renewed machine gun fire. The bullet holes around that doorway are still there today.

The firing ceased and after 5 minutes the Norfolks tried again. This time the SS came forward and marched the Norfolks around to the side of a barn that is no longer there. Both myself and @Dunkirk_1940 believe that this is a photo of the Norfolks in front of that barn.

In groups of five the men were brought from the barn and searched in a nearby field. As they were stripped of their equipment a number of them were beaten and struck by rifle butts by the SS. Once formed up the prisoners were marched along this lane towards Creton Farm.

At the end of the lane the 99 prisoners, now including men from the Norfolks sister Battalion, the Royal Scots, were ordered to turn right and then go left in to the pasture at the side of the farmhouse in the top right corner of this photo.

The following for what happened next are the words of Bert Pooley.
"Before I turned into that gateway, I saw, with one of the nastiest feelings I’ve ever had in my life, two heavy machine-guns inside the meadow. They were manned and pointing at the head of our column!...

..I felt as though an icy hand gripped my stomach. The guns began to spit fire and even as the front men began to fall I said fiercely, ‘This can’t be. They can’t do this to us!’
For a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the cracking of the guns..

...Men fell like grass before a scythe. The invisible blade came nearer and then swept through me. I felt a terrific searing pain in my leg and wrist and pitched forward engulfed in a red world of tearing agony...

..My scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates but even as I fell forward into a heap of dying men the thought stabbed my brain’ ‘if I ever get out of here the swine who did this will pay for it’"

99 men were lined up against this wall. 97 of them were murdered by the SS

The Barn at Creton Farm, then and now. Those who had survived the machine guns were finished off by Pistol shots, Bayonets and Rifle Butts.

As his account suggests, under the piles of dead bodies Bert Pooley survived the massacre along with another man, Bill O'Callaghan.
O'Callaghan helped the more badly wounded Pooley across this field from the massacre site in the distance on this photo to another nearby farm.

They then spent three nights hiding in the farm's Pigsty. The Pigsty was where the green door is today in the first photo.

They were fed at great risk to herself by the wife of the Farmer until Pooley's worsening condition forced O'Callaghan to ask the Farmer's wife to fetch the nearby Germans. Fortunately by this time the SS Totenkopf had moved on and they were picked up by regular German soldiers.

Pooley, due to his wounds was repatriated by the Germans via Sweden in 1943. O'Callaghan spent the war as a POW. It was due to the work of Colonel Alexander Scotland and the War Crimes Investigation Unit that this man, SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Knoechlein was charged..

..with giving the order to shoot the 99 unarmed Prisoners. He was brought to trial in Hamburg in October 1948 in which Bert Pooley (left) and Bill O'Callaghan (centre) gave evidence.

Knochlein was found guilty and was hanged in January 1949.

Today those who were murdered by the SS at Le Paradis on this day in 1940 lie at Le Paradis @CWGC cemetery. In the far left hand corner is the grave of the C.O, Major Lisle Ryder.
His Brother, Robert Ryder was awarded a Victoria Cross for the raid on St. Nazaire on 28 March 1942