In July 1939, the 69th Medium Regiment of the Caernarfon & Denbigh Yeomandry was formed as a Territorial Army regiment based in the Argyll Road Drill Hall in Llandudno. By May 1940, after training in St Asaph, they had just arrived at Le Harvre and marched across half of Northern France to Coutrai in Belgium when they found themselves caught up in the massive evacuation of retreating Belgian troops. They soon found themselves subjected to intensive aerial fire and suffered their first casualities. In the retreat, this lightly armed artillery regiment (who after fighting for many days, until almost without ammunition, they, under orders, had destroyed their artillery) found themselves led into an ambush at the Flanders town of Wormhout. The ambush had been laid by the notorious Wilhelm Mohnke commandant of the S.S. Regiment Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Just a few reached nearby Dunkirk and were among the very last to be evacuated on the Isle of Man Steam Packet vessel 'Tynwald'. All the remainder (except one who lived to tell the tale) were shot or taken prisoner and then massacred by the Germans in a barn at Esquelbec. It was two days after the massacre that a burial party of Austrian soldiers discovered Gunner Parry still alive and took him to a field hospital manned by captured members of the Royal Medical Corps, which included Staff Sergeant Eric Fernhead (a Chemist from Llandudno) who recognised Gunner Parry and nursed him back to health. Only after they had both safely returned back to Llandudno did the world learn of the massacre at Esquelbec in Wormhout on 28th May 1940. Llandudno was formally twinned with Wormhout on 14th April 1989.