George Henry Peat

George died during the evacuation of Dunkirk. His name was included on missing soldiers circulated around prisoner of war camps in the aftermath of the evacuation to see if he had been captured.
2nd Bn Grenadier Guards War Diary (abridged)
10/5/1940: Low Countries invaded by Germany. Bn placed on short notice to move.
18:30 hrs ordered to move to Woluwe-Ste-Etienne, 4 miles east of Brussels on the Louvain Road.
11/5/1940: 17:00 hrs reached Woluwe-Ste-Etienne and dug in. Billetted in a factory, all transport concealed or camoflaged.
12/5/1940: Refugees and retreating Belgian troops impede the trucks- "Panic was now running so high that the people refused to be stopped by the Military Police, and in some cases had to be pushed aside by the mudguards of the vehicles before passage could be made."
13/5-20/5/1940: under aircraft bombing and artillery shelling. The guards retreated to Helchin.
21/5-22/5/1940: Held Helchin. With only a weeks worth of rations left they killed 652 chickens, 2 head of cattle, 6 pigs, 2 calves. 2500 eggs were collected.
23/5/1940: Withdrawl to Martinoire.
24/5-28/5/1940: At Martinoire
29/5/1940: Withdrawl to Oostvletern. Each man to have 1 days preserved rations and an Iron ration on him and 2 days preserved rations were to be carried. All remaining kit and transport to be destroyed at once.
30/5-31/5/1940 at Furnes. Under heavy attack from 03:00 hrs to 07:00 hrs. Germans crossed the canal and established themselves on the left flank of the battalions boundry. Order to withdraw to the coast received.. "On arrival at La Panne they would receive instruction from the Movement Control Officers re embarkation which was to take place from the beach at La Panne."
"All ranks were to be instructed that if they failed to embark at La Panne or lost their way that they were to proceed to the coast and thence along the sea shore to Dunkirk where they would be embarked for England"
The final withdrawl from Furnes was to be made as quickly as possible. Bn H.Q. would close at midnight. This was the first occassion on which the Other Ranks of the battalion were informed of the intention to embark for England.
1/6/1940: Withdraw was carried out according to the plan. There were no incidents on the line of march until La Panne was reached. The village was being shelled continuously with H.E. (high explosives) and incendiary shells and movement was difficult in the dark owing to falling debris. However there were no casualties and the beach was reached at 01:50 hrs.
By 03:00 hrs the remains of the jetty was reached. It was under heavy fire and there seemed no chance of embarkation whatsoever. The beach was crowded with soldiers and as dawn approached H.Q. dug themselves in to the sand dunes. However they were almost immediately shelled out and continued along the beach to Dunkirk, which was 10 miles distant. Enemy air activity was intense and there was no intervention by British or French planes. The beach and the ships standing out at sea were continually bombarded. Some casualties were lost from low flying machine gun attacks by enemy fighters and great difficulty was experienced in evacuating the casualties.
Squadrons of Messerschmitts flew low down the sands machine-gunning the mass of men, how few were killed was remarkable, but here again it was noticable that Guardsmen and other disciplined troops stood their ground and returned fire with their rifles and Bren guns whilst most troops ran for cover of neighbouring sand dunes. Much good work was done that morning by Officers and men of the Brigade, although it may never be known to the rest of the B.E.F.
Embarkation proceeded slowly throughout the day from various points and from Dunkirk. The last of the battalion left Dunkirk at 18:00 hrs that night.
There were unfortunately many drowned.
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There were 36 known Grenadier Guards casualties on the 1st of June, 12 were from the 2nd battalion. In France and Belguim there were 582 known casualties for that day.

Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser: 1/6/1044: Roll of Honour:
Peat- In loving memory of my dear husband, Guardsman George Henry Peat 2nd Bn Grenadier Guards killed in action June 1st 1940.
Peat- In loving memory of my daddy killed in action. King and Country called him, the call was not in vain, on Britain's roll of honour you'll find my dear daddy's name.
From little Veronica.

Remembered on the Dunkirk Memorial col 32.