Jolly, Cyril The SS Massacre at Le Paradis, 27 May 1940

The Vengeance of Private Pooley

On 27 May 1940, nearly one hundred soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were murdered in the hamlet of Le Paradis in northern France. After resolutely defending their positions as part of the rearguard securing the retreat to the beaches of Dunkirk, these soldiers, who had surrendered, were disarmed, marched as a group into a field and massacred by members of an SS division they had been fighting against. However, two men survived: William O'Callaghan and Albert Pooley. Pooley in particular was seriously wounded and had to endure several agonising years as a sick prisoner of war before being repatriated in the spring of 1943, which was a clear indication of his poor health. After his return to Great Britain, he reported the massacre, but apparently no one believed him. It was only after the war, despite ongoing health problems and a return to Le Paradis, that his story was taken up and a proper investigation launched. In 1948, the SS officer responsible for the atrocity, Fritz Knoechlein, was tried in Hamburg, found guilty and executed. This edition of Cyril Jolly's account of Albert Pooley's story includes a new introduction by Nigel Cave and many new photographs.