Battle of Dunkirk





The Battle of Dunkirk lasted from around May 25 to June 3, 1940. After the
Phony War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May, 1940. German
armour burst through the Ardennes region and advanced rapidly driving north
in the so-called "sickle cut". To the east the Germans invaded and subdued
the Netherlands and advanced rapidly through Belgium.

The combined British, French and Belgian forces were rapidly split around
Armentires. The German forces then swept north to capture Calais, holding a
large body of Allied soldiers trapped against the coast on the
Franco-Belgian border. It became clear to the British that the battle was
lost and the question was now how many Allied soldiers could be removed to
the relative safety of England before their resistance was crushed.

From May 22 preparations for the evacuation began, codenamed Operation
Dynamo, commanded from Dover by Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay. He called for
as many naval vessels as possible as well as every ship capable of carrying
1,000 men within reach. It initially was intended to recover around 45,000
men of the British Expeditionary Force over two days, this was soon
stretched to 120,000 men over five days. On May 27 a request was placed to
civilians to provide all shallow draught vessels of 30 to 100 feet for the
operation, that night was the first rescue attempt. A large number of craft
including fishing boats and recreational vessels, together with Merchant
Marine and Royal Navy vessels, were gathered at Sheerness and sent to
Dunkirk and the surrounding beaches to recover Allied troops. Due to heavy
German fire only 8,000 soldiers were recovered.

Another ten destroyers were recalled for May 28 and attempted rescue
operations in the early morning but were unable to closely approach the
beaches although several thousand were rescued. It was decided that smaller
vessels would be more useful and boatyards were scoured for suitable craft,
gathering them at Sheerness, Chatham and Dover. The Allied held area was
reduced to a 30 sq km block by May 28. Operations over the rest of May 28
were more successful, with a further 16,000 men recovered but German air
operations increased and many vessels were sunk or badly damaged, including
nine destroyers.

On May 29 there was an unexpected reprieve, the German armour stopped its
advance on Dunkirk leaving the operation to the slower infantry, and the
Luftwaffe (Hermann Gšring, then in great favour with Adolf Hitler, had
promised air power alone could win the battle) but due to problems only
14,000 men were evacuated that day. On the evening of May 30 another major
group of smaller vessels was dispatched and returned with around 30,000 men.
By May 31 the Allied forces were compressed into a 5 km deep strip from La
Panne, through Bray-Dunes to Dunkirk, but on that day over 68,000 troops
were evacuated with another 10,000 or so overnight. On June 1 another 65,000
were rescued and the operations continued until June 4, evacuating a total
of 338,226 troops aboard around 700 different vessels.

Until the operation was complete the British prognosis had been gloomy, with
Churchill warning the House of Commons to expect "hard and heavy tidings".
Subsequently the British Prime Minister referred to the outcome as a
"miracle" and exhortations to the "Dunkirk spirit" - of triumphing in the
face of adversity - are still (occasionally) heard in Britain today.