As the British Expeditionary Force retreated towards Dunkirk at the end of May 1940, a group of soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, fought an heroic rear-guard action to delay advancing German troops threatening the mass evacuation. Their actions gave the allies an extra 24 hours and saved many lives. Eventually, having run out of ammunition, they surrendered to soldiers from the Waffen SS, assuming that they would be taken prisoner according to the Geneva Convention. Instead, nearly a hundred men – mostly from the Warwicks – were herded into a small barn near the little town of Wormhoudt. The SS then threw grenades into the building, killing most of those inside and then machine gunning them for good measure. Miraculously, a few men survived to tell the terrible tale.