How Untrained Troops of the Labour Divisions were Sacrificed to Save an Army. They called it 'the slaughter of the innocents'. The barely trained, poorly equipped Labour Divisions were never meant to fight but when the German blitzkreig sliced through the Allied armies they were all that stood in the way of the annihilation of the British Expeditionary Force. They bought precious time as the army fell back towards Dunkirk and long after the last of the little ships reached home they fought on. Official reports, diaries and personal accounts tell of the chaos, terror and heroism of the amateur soldiers of 137th Infantry Brigade during the fall of France.