ONCE again we have the weary old lie paraded that Churchill callously abandoned the 51st Highland Division in France in 1940 (Letters, January 27).

This story was made up by Nazi propagandists in 1940 and broadcast by Lord Haw Haw in the hope that it would foment wartime discontent in Scotland. Part of the lie was that only English troops were evacuated from Dunkirk and Scottish sailors were on the verge of mutiny. It was a complete fabrication. The Dunkirk evacuation included thousands of Scottish soldiers as well as many Welsh and Irish. The only discontent in the Royal Navy was when the destroyer commanders were restricted to night- time evacuation at Dunkirk because of crippling losses.

In May 1940, when the Germans attacked in the west, the 51st Division was isolated from the rest of the British army, in eastern France. They evacuated to Normandy where they fought as part of the French 9th Corps. After Dunkirk, the plan was to continue the fight in western France. The 51st was to be reinforced by the 52nd Lowland Division and the 1st Canadian Division, which were both landed in France after Dunkirk.

Only when the extent of the French collapse became apparent in the second week in June were plans made to evacuate. A third of the 51st Division got through to Le Havre and were brought out, but the remainder were pinned around the tiny port of St Valery. Heroic efforts were made by British and Canadian destroyers to get them away under heavy mortar and shellfire. However, when the Seaforths were driven from their position on the western cliffs, the harbour came under intense heavy machine-gun fire that swept the decks of the destroyers, killing crewmen and soldiers alike. Only night evacuation became possible thereafter. At this point, weather intervened as two nights of heavy fog prevented the destroyers getting through, to the desperate frustration of the navy commanders and waiting troops alike. Though the French 9th Corps was in a dire position, General Fortune ordered the 51st to hold out for another 24 hours in the hope that the destroyers could return to evacuate more that night. Sadly, the French units began to surrender and stream away from their positions. Rommel's tanks began to collapse his perimeter and he was left with but one choice to avoid a massacre.

More than 190,000 soldiers were evacuated from western France after Dunkirk. Churchill was indeed ruthless in 1940, as his orders to hold Calais to the end and to destroy the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir proved. He could be inept too, as the later loss of Singapore showed. But the loss of most of the 51st in 1940 was keenly felt and cannot be laid at his door. It is surprising to see Nazi lies from 1940 reappearing. And it is an insult to the British and Canadian sailors who risked all, and took heavy casualties, to rescue our soldiers.

Russell Vallance,

4 West Douglas Drive,

Helensburgh.