In 1939, the increased threat of conflict with Nazi Germany amplified the Canadian government's level of concern for the general safety of the memorial. Canada could do little more than protect the sculptures and the bases of the pylons with sandbags and await developments. When war did break out in September 1939, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) deployed to France and assumed responsibility for the Arras sector, which included Vimy. In late May 1940, following the British retreat to Dunkirk after the Battle of Arras, the status and condition of the memorial became unknown to Allied forces. The Germans took control of the site and held the site's caretaker, George Stubbs, in an Ilag internment camp for Allied civilians in St. Denis, France. The rumoured destruction of the Vimy Memorial, either during the fighting or at the hands of the Germans, was widely reported in Canada and the United Kingdom. The rumours led the German Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda to formally deny accusations that Germany had damaged or desecrated the memorial. To demonstrate the memorial had not been desecrated, Adolf Hitler, who reportedly admired the memorial for its peaceful nature, was photographed by the press while personally touring it and the preserved trenches on 2 June 1940. The undamaged state of the memorial was not confirmed until September 1944 when British troops of the 2nd Battalion, the Welsh Guards of the Guards Armoured Division, recaptured Vimy Ridge.