fighting, but rather to the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the SS Totenkopf Division (Death's Head) (SS- and Fritz Knöchlein), which had been fighting another isolated BEF unit, the Royal Scots, at an adjacent farm. The Knöchlein unit, notorious for their ruthlessness, had previously been engaged in mopping-up operations against Allied forces to the north and east of Cambrai. The 99 prisoners were marched to farm buildings on a nearby farm and lined up alongside a barn wall. They were then fired upon by two machine guns; Knöchlein then armed his men with bayonets to kill the survivors. All but two of the Norfolks were killed and their bodies buried in a shallow pit. Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan, hiding in a pigsty, were discovered later by the farm's owner, Mme Creton and her son. The two soldiers were later captured by a Wehrmacht unit and spent the rest of the war as prisoners of war. II Corps rearguard The II Corps commander Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, was ordered to conduct a holding action with the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 50th Infantry Divisions along the Ypres–Comines canal as far as Yser, while the rest of the BEF fell back. At mid-day on 27 May, the Germans attacked south of Ypres with three divisions. German infantry infiltrated through the defenders and forced them back. On 27 May, Brooke ordered Major-General Bernard Montgomery to extend the 3rd Division line to the left, freeing the 10th and 11th Brigades of the 4th Division to join the 5th Division at Messines Ridge. The 10th and 11th Brigades managed to clear the ridge of Germans and by 28 May, the brigades were dug in east of Wytschaete. Brooke ordered a counter-attack led by the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards and the 2nd Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment of the 1st Division. The North Staffords advanced as far as the Kortekeer River, while the Grenadiers managed to reach the Ypres–Comines Canal but could not hold it. The counter-attack disrupted the Germans, holding them back a little longer while the BEF continued its retreat. Dunkirk The Germans failed to capture Dunkirk and on 31 May, General Georg von Küchler assumed command of the German forces on the Dunkirk perimeter and planned a bigger attack for on 1 June. The French held the Germans back while the last troops were evacuated and just before midnight on 2 June, Admiral Bertram