Shell Petrol Can Find

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Matthew P

This photo is ostensibly from shortly after Dunkirk. These cans are distinctly different in design or have all had the spout inexplicably removed. But all carry the Shell embossing.

Very interesting picture. I can imagine the Allied troops emptied the cans and then removed to spout to render them useless for the German troops.

Of course they could have set fire to to entire fuel dump, but I've read they tried not to set fire to their equipment as that would draw attention of the German air force - read the excerpt from Farley Mowat’s book The Regiment in CMPs first used in action: June 1940, France.

“On Monday morning the order came to destroy all vehicles by fire. But we could not burn the trucks because it would have set the wood and chateau alight and drawn every German plane for a hundred miles, so we did the next best. We went to work on all those lovely new trucks with pickaxes; punctured the tires, gas tanks and radiators; jammed up the bodies, sheared off engine parts and cracked the blocks. Then we destroyed the equipment in then; the whole Regiment’s equipment.” [Mowat, 1955, p.57-60]