The Marketplace at Wormhoudt

As the brief reprieve the Allies received when Hitler ordered the Panzers to halt at the Channel coast ended, the Leibstandarte was ordered to support the 20th Infanterie (Mot.) Division in the general offensive to crack the Dunkirk perimeter. The 27th had seen the attack run into fierce resistance …

1940-05-28

J114

As the brief reprieve the Allies received when Hitler ordered the Panzers to halt at the Channel coast ended, the Leibstandarte was ordered to support the 20th Infanterie (Mot.) Division in the general offensive to crack the Dunkirk perimeter. The 27th had seen the attack run into fierce resistance at Merckeghem and at Bollezeele. After securing these localities that eveneing, the Regiment regrouped for the expected tough fight for the next days' objective: the town of Wormhoudt, sitting astride the N16 highway, and a key roadblock on the way to the evacuation beaches.

Wormhoudt, France

The Battle of Dunkirk (French: Bataille de Dunkerque) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and other Allied forces to Britain from 26 May to 4 June 1940. After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. To the east, the German Army Group B invaded the Netherlands and advanced westward. In response, the Supreme Allied Commander, French General Maurice Gamelin, initiated "Plan D" and British and French troops entered Belgium to engage the Germans in the Netherlands. French planning for war relied on the Maginot Line fortifications along the German–French border protecting the region of Lorraine but the line did not cover the Belgian border. German forces had already crossed most of the Netherlands before the French forces had arrived. Gamelin instead committed the forces under his command, three mechanised forces, the French First and Seventh Armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), to the River Dyle. On 14 May, German Army Group A burst through the Ardennes and advanced rapidly westward toward Sedan, turning northward to the English Channel, using Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein's plan Sichelschnitt (under the German strategy Fall Gelb), effectively flanking the Allied forces.

German

British

Scenario Type = Standard