On June 12th at 1000 the 51st Highland Division, under the command of Major General Victor Fortune, surrendered to the Germans at Saint-Valery-en-Caux. Surrounded, General Fortune had considered other options, such as counter attacking, but with little ammunition and the nearby French 9th Corps, (I think?) surrendering just a couple of hours earlier, General Fortune decided to surrender to General Rommel, commanding the German 7th Panzer division.
You can learn the full history from the official 51st Highland Division website:
https://51hd.co.uk/history/valery_1940Two interesting items for your consideration related to this event in history.
The first item: Davy Steele, of Battlefield band, wrote a song about this event in 1998. His father and uncle where in the Seaforth Highlanders and both were present during the Battle of St. Valery. Davy's father escaped, but his uncle did not, which Davy includes in his song. Here is Mr. Steele's song:
The second item: During the latest episode of Pipeline (June 6th, 2020), at BBC Radio Scotland, there is a segment about the Battle of St. Valery. You can find it here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jtbg - Please note: it is only available for about three more weeks.
There were many famous pipers in the 51st Highland Division and Pipeline host Gary West starts a story about how "Wee" Donald Macleod escaped from the Germans on the long march through France at the 22:45 mark. Mr. Macleod's daughter Susan picks up the story starting at the 23:00 mark of how her father managed the escape and finishes at 24:35.
The recording won't be available after three more weeks, so here's rough transcript of the story.
Susan: They were on a forced march, now uncle ? and uncle Angus was on that forced march, so was Pipe Major Donald MacLean of Lewis, not that they were together, but on one of the rests on this march, Dad, being so small rolled into a ditch and wasn't missed. He wandered around France for quite a while, just eating raw turnips from the fields and eventually the resistance picked him up. They grouped him with some other chaps and they were trying, I think he got out at St. Valery eventually, but they were trying to get there without the Germans knowing what their purpose was. They were accosted once or twice by Germans and Dad just spoke Gaelic to them. I hate to think what he was saying...
Unknown male voice humorously says: And the Germans said, "Are you from Stornoway?"
Susan: … and they just thought they were eastern Europeans and they let them go.
Gary West: I've heard a lot of stories about how useful Gaelic can be at times when there's non-speakers around too, so that was clearly a key, a crucial one.
Susan: Yes, indeed.