the Dunkirk evacuation, fighting and lines-of-communications troops south of the Somme were reinforced, losses in the three AASF fighter and six bomber squadrons in France were replaced and another two fighter and four bomber squadrons were sent from England. Advanced parties of the 1st Armoured Division (Major-General Roger Evans) arrived at Le Havre on 15 May and moved to Arras. The German advance made operations in the area impossible and Luftwaffe bombing and mining of Le Havre made the port unsuitable for more landings. On 19 May, the War Office agreed that the rest of the division should land at Cherbourg and then concentrate at Pacy-sur-Eure, about south of Rouen. The rest of the division began to disembark on 19 May but had no artillery, was short of an armoured regiment and the infantry of the Support Group, which had been diverted to Calais. The division lacked wireless equipment, spare parts, bridging material and there were no tanks in reserve for the tanks and in the armoured brigades. On 21 May, Evans was ordered to capture crossings over the Somme from Picquigny to Pont-Remy and then be ready to operate to the east or north depending on circumstances. The area south of the lower Somme was the Northern District of the BEF supply system (Acting Brigadier Archibald Beauman) with sub-areas at Dieppe and Rouen. Beauman had received intelligence that the Germans had already captured the Somme crossings and were moving on the Seine bridges near Rouen. Beauman ordered the crossings to be secured by part of the divisional Support Group and next day part of the division concentrated in the Forêt de Lyons, east of Rouen as a flank guard on the lower Andelle and to protect the arrival of the rest of the division, due on 23 May. Early that day, part of the 1st Armoured Division advanced to the Bresle on a line from Aumale to Blangy, as reports were received that the German forces on the southern flank were on the defensive, only reconnoitring south of the river as they attacked St Omer and Arras in the north. The French Seventh Army had closed up to German positions from Péronne to Amiens, ready to cross the river on 23 May. GHQ ordered an attack by the 1st Armoured Division, to combine with the Anglo-French operations at the Battle of Arras which had begun on 21 May. Lines