Stanley Jenkinson

ESQUELMES WAR CEMETERY III. A. 4.

The Battle of Esquelmes: Jenkinson was killed during the intense defensive actions along the River Escaut (Scheldt). This was the exact engagement where his battalion fought to delay the rapid German advance, providing crucial time for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to fall back toward the Dunkirk perimeter.

The 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards (serving under the 1st Guards Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division) underwent a brutal three-week fighting retreat from Belgium to France in May 1940.
The day-by-day operational timeline of their retreat, defence, and evacuation at Dunkirk outlines their movements:
Phase 1: The Advance into Belgium (May 10 – May 15)
• May 10: The German invasion of the Low Countries begins. The 3rd Battalion mobilizes from its positions on the Franco-Belgian frontier.
• May 11–12: The Battalion advances smoothly across the Belgian frontier to take up defensive positions on the River Dyle line, ahead of Brussels.
• May 13–15: The Battalion digs into positions, enduring their first severe German artillery barrages and air raids while attempting to hold the line.
Phase 2: The Fighting Retreat (May 16 – May 26)
• May 16–19: Following the German breakthrough at Sedan, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) is forced into a general retreat. The 3rd Battalion conducts a disciplined fallback toward the River Escaut (Scheldt).
• May 21: The Battle of the River Escaut. The Battalion faces massed German infantry assaults. Lance Corporal Harry Nicholls earns his Victoria Cross here by single-handedly charging and silencing multiple German machine-gun posts with a Bren gun. The Battalion suffers very heavy casualties.
• May 22–25: The retreat continues day and night under constant threat of encirclement. The Battalion falls back to the River Lys, continuously digging temporary positions and fighting off probing German vanguard units.
• May 26: The Battalion command post, located in the cellar of a carpet factory, survives near-miss aerial bombings. At 22:30, they are relieved by the 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, and march through the night across the River Lys.
• Phase 3: The Perimeter and Evacuation (May 27 – June 1)
• May 27–28: The Battalion is ordered into the rapidly collapsing Dunkirk perimeter. On the evening of May 27, they execute a sharp, vital counter-attack to stabilize the faltering Allied flank exposed by the imminent Belgian surrender.
• May 29–31: Now acting as part of the hard-pressed rearguard, the remnants of the• May 29–31: Now acting as part of the hard-pressed rearguard, the remnants of the Battalion fight desperate holding actions to buy time for the troops assembling on the beaches• June 1: The Battalion travels by 3-ton trucks to Zuydcoote. Following orders, they smash their own vehicles to prevent enemy use and march two miles onto the sand dunes of Dunkirk under heavy German shelling.
• The Final Extraction (June 1, 14:30): The 50th Division orders the Battalion to move down the beach toward the Dunkirk Mole. Despite intense Luftwaffe dive-bombing attacks that sink nearby destroyers, the disciplined remnants of the 3rd Battalion successfully board ships and are evacuated back to England
The 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards suffered nearly 200 casualties during the heavy fighting in May 1940. The vast majority of these losses occurred during a single 24-hour window at the Battle of the River Escaut on May 21.
The breakdown of the battalion's specific officer losses and notable actions highlights the severity of the engagements: