Widow of 'Dunkirk martyr' causes red faces in a small French town

Catherine Davenport, a British widow in her 80s, was received like royalty in the small French town of Oignies, near Dunkirk.

She was the widow of Keith Davenport, a British officer, whose memory the town had honoured for 60 years. They remembered how he had been tortured and burnt alive by the Nazis after being captured during the British retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940.

Mrs Davenport was astonished to hear the story. She pointed out that her husband had died at their home, near London, in 1989.

The town of Oignies, declared a "place of martyrdom" after the war, is now having to reconsider its history.

Who was the young man in a British officer's uniform seen being frog-marched into a building in the town on 28 May 1940? Who was the man whose screams were heard that night and who was tied to a chair by SS soldiers before the building was set alight? The remains of a uniform and a watch found the next day suggested it was Lieutenant Keith Davenport of the Sherwood Foresters. But his widow explained, when she visited the town a few days ago, that he had escaped from Oignies, leaving some of his possessions behind.

The brutality of the SS in Oignies – executing local people and British soldiers – is well documented. But who was the man in uniform? Local historians are now unsure whether the story was exaggerated or another soldier disguised himself as a British officer, hoping for leniency from the Germans.