Le Paradis massacre

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The Le Paradis massacre was an atrocity against soldiers hors de combat during the Battle of France of World War II, when members of the British 2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment were victims of a German SS war crime at Le Paradis in the Pas-de-Calais on May 26, 1940.

The Royal Norfolks were one of several units covering the retreat and evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. They had fought as the rearguard all the way back to Cornet Farm where they held out, causing the Germans heavy casualties. It should be noted that they had a large quantity of ammunition and most were marksmen. The HQ company of the regiment's 2nd Battalion eventually surrendered after running out of ammunition, to a unit of the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division. The commander was SS Obersturmführer Fritz Knochlein. The 99 prisoners who were all wounded were marched to some farm buildings where they were lined up alongside a barn wall. They were then fired upon by two machine guns. 97 of them were killed and the bodies buried in shallow pit. Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan had hidden in a pig-sty and were discovered later by the farm's owner, Mdme Creton, and her son. The two soldiers were later captured by a Wehrmacht unit and spent the rest of the war as prisoners of war. Fifteen soldiers, including an officer Lieutenant J.G.Woodwark, survived the shooting as they were badly wounded in a ditch and were overlooked. Lieutenant J.G.Woodwark survived the war.

The bodies were exhumed in 1942 by the French and reburied in the local churchyard which now forms part of the pretty and tranquil Le Paradis War Cemetery. The massacre was investigated by the War Crimes Investigation Unit and Knoechlein was traced and arrested. Tried in a court in Hamburg, he was found guilty and hanged on January 28, 1949. A memorial plaque was placed on the barn wall in 1970. A large memorial was subequently erected beside the Church.