La Plaine aux Bois, ESQUELBECQ

A memorial marking the Nazi massacre of some 100 retreating allied troops in May 1940 lies close to the village of Esquelbecq at La Plaine au Bois. It was while fighting a vicious rearguard action on the road to Dunkirk that the soldiers, mainly British, were captured by the advancing Germans and herded into a small cowshed. Grenades were then thrown in, with anyone not killed led outside and shot. Of two who managed to escape, one man was caught by the SS and shot; the other survived by feigning death after being shot in the neck. The site remained unknown until the 1960s. In 2000 the memorial was built amid trees planted in memory of the victims.