EVANS & JOLLIFFE - married each other twice?

[Bherbe]

The cemetery records page for the cemetery where Lieut. Douglas St. John Evans was buried interested me for the number of Guardsmen and Royal Engineers interred there - my father was a Royal Engineer in WW2 (though he survived) and in several years of visiting cemeteries I have never noticed a number of Royal Engineers as there are here and all killed on 29-31st May 1940. It seems that the action in which they were all killed was when these men were acting as a rearguard during the legendary evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, holding bridges on the canals to hold back the German troops and allow other servicemen to cross on their way to the beaches at Dunkirk.  And then blowing the bridges to delay the enemy, a job, no doubt for the engineers which might account for the numbers present and killed. Although I could not immediately find any Royal Engineers' battalion diaries for those dates,  I did find this book which gives a detailed record of those dates for each of the guards battalions involved (several of whom were also buried in this cemetery). Though there is no mention of the Royal Engineers it does give a glimpse of the desperate efforts to hold the line to allow the evacuation and later the retreat of the remaining troops.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015048995396;view=2up;seq=74;skin=mobile

Hi Rowleyrosie, thanks for the link - I will have a good look. I stumbled across an old thread from WW2 Talk that seems to imply he may have been shot by a British Officer from another battalion - potentially for "retreating" without orders to do so. I have read the whole thread but not being an expert by any means in anything military, a lot went over my head. I think the situation was dire (understatement!), with many officers having been killed, and without leadership the men were withdrawing. An officer from another battalion was sent to see what was happening and shot DASJ Evans (?) and turned the other men around at the point of a bayonet! I have asked for further help from one of the knowledgeable posters there to see if he can make it clearer for me. I expect the whole scenario was completely terrifying and unimaginable - being stuck there in all that chaos and knowing you have a wife and baby son at home....

[Bherbe]

Thanks everyone for the Newspaper links as well - I have been going through the Welsh Newspapers Online for earlier family but hadn't got any of these. I did find a death announcement for DASJ EVANS though with a lovely photo - always nice to see a face.

[Rowleyrosie]

Oh, what an unbearable waste that would have been, if so. And the information Ladyhawk found says that he had been mentioned in despatches, so he was not a coward.
The Guards War Diaries refer to the number of officers lost and the chaos and of someone having to be put temporarily in charge. We hear a lot about what happened on the beaches, what was going on behind them must, as you say, have been terrifying. Sobering to read even all these years later.