In a new book, military historian John Sadler follows the campaigns of Second World War in the words of Durham Light Infantry’s ‘citizen soldiers’ and, he tells Steve Pratt, investigates a slur on the regiment’s reputation.

MILITARY historian John Sadler had a dual purpose when setting out to tell the story of the Second World War in the words of Durham Light Infantry’s (DLI) “citizen soldiers”.

Using the newly-digitalised DLI sound archive, he was able to listen to first-hand accounts from soldiers of the major campaigns and, finally, the liberation of the concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen.

Sadler, who lives in Newcastle, was also keen to challenge a slur on the DLI in a previously published history of Dunkirk that accused 151 Brigade – particularly the 6th and 8th Battalions – of killing 400 German prisoners in cold blood. It was further alleged that this purported atrocity was the excuse for the subsequent massacres of Allied captives by the SS.

After the book’s publication in 1980, veterans collected eyewitness testimony from survivors to refute the allegation, but this was never published.

“I wanted to set the record straight,” says Sadler, who lectures at Sunderland University, The Imperial War Museum and National Army Museum.

“I was given access to a lot of material that hadn’t been seen before, statements and depositions taken in the Eighties, but never released.

They are pure gold.

“When the book came out it was an offence, particularly in the North, because of the way it portrayed the DLI infantry as untrained, basically stupid people, led by sneering toffs with a Southerner’s view of the North.

“It was missing the fact that these men came from every walk of life, most were well educated and their conduct during the whole war would suggest they were highly professional in the way they went about soldiering.

“The book made a fairly hefty allegation, but the author was never able to produce the evidence.

He had never spoken to anyone there, but heard it from someone who heard it from someone who was there.

“So it’s a little bit thin, but it’s in print and a very significant allegation to make against a county regiment. Things happen in war that shouldn’t happen, but to suggest that the British Army carried out, presumably under orders or certainly with the connivance of officers, the systematic murder of 400 prisoners is a very serious allegation. It’s a war crime, as I understand it.”

Access to unpublished papers meant Sadler could recreate what happened on the day of the alleged atrocity. “It allowed me to construct a fairly accurate picture of events that day, as far as you can in the fog of war,” he says.

“It was very confused, but sufficient to say, with near 100 per cent conviction as you can get in these circumstances, that no atrocity occurred because the SS, the victims of this alleged massacre, actually record two dead that day, not 400. And it appears most of the prisoners were from Rommel’s Panzer division and not the SS.”

His repudiation of the allegations is only part of his book Dunkirk To Belsen,which uses the DLI oral archive to paint a portrait of infantry at war between 1939 and 1945.

“It’s almost the universal experience, with perhaps a Northern bias, and not untypical of what many infantrymen went through,” he says. “The DLI battalions were involved over the course of the war in every single phase and aspect of the conflict. Every major action, they were involved with one way or another.”

The archive – which is available to listen to at the DLI Museum, with plans to put it online – consists of mostly taped interviews with servicemen made in the Eighties. “Most of the guys recorded were in their 60s and therefore their recollection was that much clearer. Now, of course, many are no longer with us,” he says.

The book was a journey for him, too, because he had little idea of what shape the book would take.

“The thing develops a momentum of its own and takes you on the journey and into the lives of these men. You’re actually listening to their voices, that’s the important thing and what gives it a special resonance.

“A lot of that is not just about being in battle, but the whole minutiae of Army life. Most of these chaps were not professional soldiers.

They were young men, citizen soldiers, drawn from their civilian occupations and thrust into something they realised they had an obligation to take, but with no great enthusiasm for it.

They’re not professional soldiers, it’s a working day, really.”

AS the author of 20 books, he’s used to writing military history, but believes this is different in being told in the words of the soldiers themselves.

“What I’m trying to do is tell the story through their experiences and to link that experience with the general outlook so the reader understands what’s happening at the time, and then let the men tell the story.

“Who better? I wasn’t there.”

He emphasises that it’s not a regimental history.

Readers can listen to the rest of the archive. “If you listen for a long time, you get inside the heads of these men. They take you over,” says Sadler.

“It’s not just what they say, but how they say it. It’s a typical Northern thing – they’re very dry, these guys. There’s no breast-beating or wailing and screaming even when they’re describing the most horrific incidents. It’s all told in a very matter-of-fact way. Not one of them gloats in any way about their achievements.

“They’re incredibly reticent. Sometimes, you only learn someone was awarded a medal, not because they tell you, but because you read about it in the regimental history. There’s a tremendous reticence to brag in any way.”

■ Dunkirk To Belsen: The Soldiers’ Own Dramatic Stories (JR Books, £20)