« On 10 May, we received the order to move into Belgium. We had little artillery and were advancing on foot. We had the impression that we were prepared as for the previous war. The roads were crowded with refugees and we had to go through the back roads. When we arrived, it was too late. The breakthrough had been made. There was not much left to do. The three of us [he and his two brothers] were taken prisoner in Belgium on 18 May 1940.
The Battle of France by François Bouthier, of Saint-Michel-de-Double, survivor of the Dunkirk pocket
« Five of us went through the whole city of Dunkirk on the sea side. We headed for a large pier. Not far from there, soldiers were positioned in shelters dug in the sand. They told us that a British ship was due to embark at the end of the jetty. We went there and we did manage to get on board, but not without difficulty. The English refused us access and wanted to throw us back into the sea. There were practically only English people present. We feared an attack by the German air force, but the crossing finally went well until we reached Dover where we disembarked.
The exodus to Mussidan as seen by the newspaper « La France de Bordeaux et du Sud-Ouest », 27 June 1940
« In Mussidan, the excitement was even greater: the convoys had absorbed the whole road, the smell of burnt petrol stank in the air, the noise of the engines lengthened into a dull hum from which one could no longer find the starting point, nor the direction. The road to Bergerac soon became nothing more than an immense moving line, whose mobility was sometimes broken by long stops… ».
The exodus by Lucie Escaudemaison, resident of Mussidan
« While entire regiments were stationed in town, refugees arrived from all over, on bicycles or in cars, with mattresses fixed to the roof. The trains, packed with passengers, refused to leave our station, not wanting to continue their exodus. Faced with this massive influx of people, the mayor of Mussidan called on the prefecture. How to feed all these people? There was no more bread in the bakeries. The water was cut off several hours a day. To allow passers-by to listen to the news, many inhabitants left their windows open on the street, with the radio set plugged in nearby.