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On 30 May, Churchill received word that all British divisions were now behind the defensive lines, along with more than half of the French First Army. By this time, the perimeter ran along a series of canals about 7 miles (11 km) from the coast, in marshy country not suitable for tanks.Among the first to traverse the approximately 60 miles across the Channel to Dunkirk, and the last to leave on the final day of operations, was the Medway Queen.“And it was such a difficult and arduous crossing. It was really, really tough; the channel is no joke. It took us about 19 hours to get there, much longer than we thought.

Contents

How far across is the English Channel from Dunkirk?

Among the first to traverse the approximately 60 miles across the Channel to Dunkirk, and the last to leave on the final day of operations, was the Medway Queen.

How long does it take to cross the English Channel Dunkirk?

“And it was such a difficult and arduous crossing. It was really, really tough; the channel is no joke. It took us about 19 hours to get there, much longer than we thought.

How wide was the English Channel?

According to the Channel Swimming Association, the English Channel is about 21 miles wide.

How many English were evacuated at Dunkirk?

Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk, involved the rescue of more than 338,000 British and French soldiers from the French port of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The evacuation, sometimes referred to as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was a big boost for British morale.

How long was the boat ride from England to Dunkirk?

Some of the smallest little ships, ferrying soldiers from the beach to waiting vessels. Over those ten days, the armada of little ships made multiple trips between the beaches of Dunkirk, British warships, and the beaches of England.

How far is it from Dunkirk to England by boat?

Evacuation routes

The shortest was Route Z, a distance of 39 nautical miles (72 km), but it entailed hugging the French coast and thus ships using it were subject to bombardment from on-shore batteries, particularly in daylight hours.

Did anyone swim from Dunkirk to England?

Message 1 – Dunkirk

He arrived at Dunkirk and could not find a place on a boat and decided to take his chances with swimming out and hoping to be picked up by a passing boat. His luck was out but he was a very strong swimmer and made it to within two miles of the English coast when he was picked up by a small boat.

How many British died at Dunkirk?

While more than 330,000 Allied troops were rescued, the British and French sustained heavy casualties and were forced to abandon nearly all their equipment; around 16,000 French and 1,000 British soldiers died during the evacuation.

Battle of Dunkirk.
Date 26 May – 4 June 1940
Result See aftermath

How many private boats went to Dunkirk?

The Little Ships of Dunkirk were about 850 private boats that sailed from Ramsgate, England, to Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4, 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, helping to rescue more than 336,000 British and French soldiers who were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk during the Second World War.

What is the narrowest distance of the English Channel?

The Strait of Dover forms the narrowest part of the English Channel, where a scant 33 kilometers (20 miles) separates Great Britain from the rest of Europe. Because of the narrowness of the channel and its position as the gateway between the North Sea and the open Atlantic, the strait is very busy with ship traffic.

How deep is the English Channel between Dover and Calais?

The channel is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to about 45 m between Dover and Calais.

How deep is the Channel between England and France?

At its lowest point, it is 75 metres (250 ft) deep below the sea bed and 115 metres (380 ft) below sea level. At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 mi), it has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world, and is the third longest railway tunnel in the world.

Why were the British able to rescue so many soldiers from Dunkirk?

And, to sum up, over 300,000 Allied troops were rescued from the beaches surrounding Dunkirk. Many of the rescues were possible due to the efforts of British civilians, who used fishing boats and other small vessels to pick up the stranded soldiers.

How many soldiers were left behind at Dunkirk?

Although not a single British soldier was left on the Dunkirk beaches, some 70,000 troops were left behind in France, either dead, wounded, prisoner or still stuck further south. The British also left behind 76,000 tons of ammunition, 400,000 tons of supplies and 2,500 guns.

What happened to the soldiers left behind at Dunkirk?

As described in Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind, by Sean Longden, some were summarily executed. The POWs were denied food and medical treatment. The wounded were jeered at. To lower officer morale, the Nazis told British officers that they would lose their rank and be sent to the salt mines to work.

What is the closest point between England and France?

The shortest distance across the strait, at approximately 20 miles (32 kilometres), is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais.

How long did it take to cross the English Channel in medieval times?

This edition mentions that typical passage times from New York to the English Channel for a well-found sailing vessel of about 2000 tons was around 25 to 30 days, with ships logging 100-150 miles per day on average.

Is it possible to swim from France to England?

The English Channel is the stretch of water between England and France. The shortest route to swim across it is 21 miles long, but that can change depending on the current. The Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with 600 tankers and 200 ferries passing through it every day!

How long would it take to swim across the English Channel?

It will take you a long time – between seven hours (record time) and 28 (record at the other end of the scale). 12. The fastest was Australian Trent Grimsey in six hours and 55 minutes in 2012. The slowest was Jackie Cobell who was swept off course and ended up swimming some 65 miles.


Dunkirk \”The Dunkirk Spirit\” Featurette (2018)
Dunkirk \”The Dunkirk Spirit\” Featurette (2018)


Dunkirk evacuation – Wikipedia

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Evacuation[edit]

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The True Story of Dunkirk, As Told Through the Heroism of the “Medway Queen” | History|
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The True Story of Dunkirk, As Told Through the Heroism of the “Medway Queen”  | History|
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Christopher Nolan on his long crossing to Dunkirk: Howell | The Star

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Dunkirk Evacuation WW2 – What You Need To Know | Imperial War Museums

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6 Facts About the Dunkirk Evacuation

6 Facts About the Dunkirk Evacuation

1 It was a rescue mission

1 It was a rescue mission

2 The evacuation was code-named Operation Dynamo

2 The evacuation was code-named Operation Dynamo

3 The Evacuation Began on 26 May

3 The Evacuation Began on 26 May

4 The- ‘Little Ships’ helped

4 The- ‘Little Ships’ helped

5 Over 300000 soldiers were rescued

5 Over 300000 soldiers were rescued

6 The evacuation boosted morale

6 The evacuation boosted morale

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English Channel – Wikipedia

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How wide is the English Channel between England and France? | Archive More

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Where does the North Sea and English Channel meet

Why is it called the English Channel and not the French channel

Where does the Atlantic Ocean meet the English Channel

What is English channel called

Can you swim from Dunkirk to England

How long would it take to swim from Dunkirk to England

What is the shortest distance from France to England

What happened to the soldiers left behind at Dunkirk

What happened to the pilot at the end of Dunkirk

How many soldiers were left behind at Dunkirk

Why was Dunkirk a failure

Why was Dunkirk considered a miracle

Who was responsible for Dunkirk

Was Dunkirk a success or failure

How many died at Dunkirk

Why is Dunkirk so important

What was the impact of Dunkirk

Why was Dunkirk a turning point in ww2

What impact did Dunkirk have on ww2

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What event was the turning point of WW2

When was the turning point of WW2

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Operation Dynamo: Things you need to know | English Heritage

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Background

Planning and commencement of evacuation

German advance halted

Ongoing evacuation efforts

Evacuation shipping routes

Ships used

Losses

Aftermath

Dunkirk jack

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Dunkirk evacuation

WWII evacuation of Allied forces in May–June 1940

The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this “a colossal military disaster”, saying “the whole root and core and brain of the British Army” had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his “We shall fight on the beaches” speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a “miracle of deliverance”.

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France and the British Empire declared war on Germany and imposed an economic blockade. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to help defend France. After the Phoney War of October 1939 to April 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and France on 10 May 1940. Three panzer corps attacked through the Ardennes and drove northwest to the English Channel. By 21 May, German forces had trapped the BEF, the remains of the Belgian forces, and three French field armies along the northern coast of France. BEF commander General Viscount Gort immediately saw evacuation across the Channel as the best course of action, and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest good port.

Late on 23 May, a halt order was issued by Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group A. Adolf Hitler approved this order the next day, and had the German High Command send confirmation to the front. Attacking the trapped BEF, French, and Belgian armies was left to the Luftwaffe until the order was rescinded on 26 May. This gave Allied forces time to construct defensive works and pull back large numbers of troops to fight the Battle of Dunkirk. From 28 to 31 May, in the siege of Lille, the remaining 40,000 men of the French First Army fought a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armoured divisions.

On the first day only 7,669 Allied soldiers were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, 338,226 had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 vessels. Many troops were able to embark from the harbour’s protective mole onto 39 British Royal Navy destroyers, four Royal Canadian Navy destroyers, at least three French Navy destroyers, and a variety of civilian merchant ships. Others had to wade out from the beaches, waiting for hours in shoulder-deep water. Some were ferried to the larger ships by what became known as the Little Ships of Dunkirk, a flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, yachts, and lifeboats called into service from Britain. The BEF lost 68,000 soldiers during the French campaign and had to abandon nearly all of its tanks, vehicles, and equipment. In his 4 June speech, Churchill also reminded the country that “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

Background [ edit ]

In September 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, the United Kingdom sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to aid in the defence of France, landing at Cherbourg, Nantes, and Saint-Nazaire. By May 1940 the force consisted of ten divisions in three corps under the command of General John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort. Working with the BEF were the Belgian Army and the French First, Seventh, and Ninth Armies.

During the 1930s, the French had constructed the Maginot Line, a series of fortifications along their border with Germany. This line had been designed to deter a German invasion across the Franco-German border and funnel an attack into Belgium, which could then be met by the best divisions of the French Army. Thus, any future war would take place outside of French territory, avoiding a repeat of the First World War. The area immediately to the north of the Maginot Line was covered by the heavily wooded Ardennes region, which French General Philippe Pétain declared to be “impenetrable” as long as “special provisions” were taken. He believed that any enemy force emerging from the forest would be vulnerable to a pincer attack and destroyed. The French commander-in-chief, Maurice Gamelin, also believed the area to be of a limited threat, noting that it “never favoured large operations”. With this in mind, the area was left lightly defended.

The initial plan for the German invasion of France called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium, avoiding the Maginot Line. Erich von Manstein, then Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A, prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH; German High Command) via his superior, Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt. Manstein’s plan suggested that panzer divisions should attack through the Ardennes, then establish bridgeheads on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The Germans would thus cut off the Allied armies in Belgium. This part of the plan later became known as the Sichelschnitt (“sickle cut”). Adolf Hitler approved a modified version of Manstein’s ideas, today known as the Manstein Plan, after meeting with him on 17 February.

Situation on 21 May 1940; German forces occupy the area shaded in pink

On 10 May, Germany invaded Belgium and the Netherlands. Army Group B, under Generaloberst Fedor von Bock, attacked into Belgium, while the three panzer corps of Army Group A under Rundstedt swung around to the south and drove for the Channel. The BEF advanced from the Belgian border to positions along the River Dyle within Belgium, where they fought elements of Army Group B starting on 10 May. They were ordered to begin a fighting withdrawal to the Scheldt River on 14 May when the Belgian and French positions on their flanks failed to hold. During a visit to Paris on 17 May, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was astonished to learn from Gamelin that the French had committed all their troops to the ongoing engagements and had no strategic reserves. On 19 May, Gort met with French General Gaston Billotte, commander of the French First Army and overall coordinator of the Allied forces. Billotte revealed that the French had no troops between the Germans and the sea. Gort immediately saw that evacuation across the Channel was the best course of action, and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest location with good port facilities. Surrounded by marshes, Dunkirk boasted old fortifications and the longest sand beach in Europe, where large groups could assemble. On 20 May, on Churchill’s suggestion, the Admiralty began arranging for all available small vessels to be made ready to proceed to France. After continued engagements and a failed Allied attempt on 21 May at Arras to cut through the German spearhead, the BEF was trapped, along with the remains of the Belgian forces and the three French armies, in an area along the coast of northern France and Belgium.

Prelude [ edit ]

Without informing the French, the British began planning on 20 May for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF. This planning was headed by Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay at the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, from which he briefed Churchill as it was under way. Ships began gathering at Dover for the evacuation. On 20 May, the BEF sent Brigadier Gerald Whitfield to Dunkirk to start evacuating unnecessary personnel. Overwhelmed by what he later described as “a somewhat alarming movement towards Dunkirk by both officers and men”, due to a shortage of food and water, he had to send many along without thoroughly checking their credentials. Even officers ordered to stay behind to aid the evacuation disappeared onto the boats.

On 22 May, Churchill ordered the BEF to attack southward in coordination with the French First Army under General Georges Blanchard to reconnect with the remainder of the French forces. This proposed action was dubbed the Weygand Plan after General Maxime Weygand, appointed Supreme Commander after Gamelin’s dismissal on 18 May. On 25 May, Gort had to abandon any hope of achieving this objective and withdrew on his own initiative, along with Blanchard’s forces, behind the Lys Canal, part of a canal system that reached the sea at Gravelines. Sluice gates had already been opened all along the canal to flood the system and create a barrier (the Canal Line) against the German advance.

Battle of Dunkirk [ edit ]

Soldiers were strafed and bombed by German aircraft while awaiting transport.

By 24 May, the Germans had captured the port of Boulogne and surrounded Calais. The engineers of the 2nd Panzer Division under Generalmajor Rudolf Veiel built five bridges over the Canal Line and only one British battalion barred the way to Dunkirk. On 23 May, at the suggestion of Fourth Army commander Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge, Rundstedt had ordered the panzer units to halt, concerned about the vulnerability of his flanks and the question of supply to his forward troops. He was also concerned that the marshy ground around Dunkirk would prove unsuitable for tanks and he wished to conserve them for later operations (in some units, tank losses were 30–50 per cent). Hitler was also apprehensive, and on a visit to Army Group A headquarters on 24 May, he endorsed the order.

Air Marshal Hermann Göring urged Hitler to let the Luftwaffe (aided by Army Group B ) finish off the British, to the consternation of General Franz Halder, who noted in his diary that the Luftwaffe was dependent upon the weather and aircrews were worn out after two weeks of battle. Rundstedt issued another order, which was sent uncoded. It was picked up by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Y service intelligence network at 12:42: “By order of the Fuhrer … attack north-west of Arras is to be limited to the general line Lens–Bethune–Aire–St Omer–Gravelines. The Canal will not be crossed.” Later that day, Hitler issued Directive 13, which called for the Luftwaffe to defeat the trapped Allied forces and stop their escape. At 15:30 on 26 May, Hitler ordered the panzer groups to continue their advance, but most units took another 16 hours to attack. The delay gave the Allies time to prepare defences vital for the evacuation and prevented the Germans from stopping the Allied retreat from Lille.

The halt order has been the subject of much discussion by historians. Guderian considered the failure to order a timely assault on Dunkirk to be one of the major German mistakes on the Western Front. Rundstedt called it “one of the great turning points of the war”, and Manstein described it as “one of Hitler’s most critical mistakes”. B. H. Liddell Hart interviewed many of the generals after the war and put together a picture of Hitler’s strategic thinking on the matter. Hitler believed that once Britain’s troops left continental Europe, they would never return.[page needed]

Evacuation [ edit ]

26–27 May [ edit ]

Troops evacuated from Dunkirk arrive at Dover, 31 May 1940

The retreat was undertaken amid chaotic conditions, with abandoned vehicles blocking the roads and a flood of refugees heading in the opposite direction. Due to wartime censorship and the desire to keep up British morale, the full extent of the unfolding disaster at Dunkirk was not initially publicised. A special service attended by King George VI was held in Westminster Abbey on 26 May, which was declared a national day of prayer. The Archbishop of Canterbury led prayers “for our soldiers in dire peril in France”. Similar prayers were offered in synagogues and churches throughout the UK that day, confirming to the public their suspicion of the desperate plight of the troops. Just before 19:00 on 26 May, Churchill ordered Dynamo to begin, by which time 28,000 men had already departed. Initial plans called for the recovery of 45,000 men from the BEF within two days, at which time German troops were expected to block further evacuation. Only 25,000 men escaped during this period, including 7,669 on the first day.

On 27 May, the first full day of the evacuation, one cruiser, eight destroyers, and 26 other craft were active. Admiralty officers combed nearby boatyards for small craft that could ferry personnel from the beaches out to larger craft in the harbour, as well as larger vessels that could load from the docks. An emergency call was put out for additional help, and by 31 May nearly four hundred small craft were voluntarily and enthusiastically taking part in the effort.

The same day, the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Dunkirk, both the town and the dock installations. As the water supply was knocked out, the resulting fires could not be extinguished. An estimated one thousand civilians were killed, one-third of the remaining population of the town. RAF squadrons were ordered to provide air supremacy for the Royal Navy during evacuation. Their efforts shifted to covering Dunkirk and the English Channel, protecting the evacuation fleet. The Luftwaffe was met by 16 squadrons of the RAF, who claimed 38 kills on 27 May while losing 14 aircraft. Many more RAF fighters sustained damage and were subsequently written off. On the German side, Kampfgeschwader 2 (KG 2) and KG 3 suffered the heaviest casualties. German losses amounted to 23 Dornier Do 17s. KG 1 and KG 4 bombed the beach and harbour and KG 54 sank the 8,000-ton steamer Aden. Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers sank the troopship Cote d’ Azur. The Luftwaffe engaged with 300 bombers which were protected by 550 fighter sorties and attacked Dunkirk in twelve raids. They dropped 15,000 high explosive and 30,000 incendiary bombs, destroying the oil tanks and wrecking the harbour. No. 11 Group RAF flew 22 patrols with 287 aircraft this day, in formations of up to 20 aircraft.

Altogether, over 3,500 sorties were flown in support of Operation Dynamo. The RAF continued to inflict a heavy toll on the German bombers throughout the week. Soldiers being bombed and strafed while awaiting transport were for the most part unaware of the efforts of the RAF to protect them, as most of the dogfights took place far from the beaches. As a result, many British soldiers bitterly accused the airmen of doing nothing to help, reportedly leading to some army troops accosting and insulting RAF personnel once they returned to England.

On 25 and 26 May, the Luftwaffe focused their attention on Allied pockets holding out at Calais, Lille, and Amiens, and did not attack Dunkirk. Calais, held by the BEF, surrendered on 26 May. Remnants of the French First Army, surrounded at Lille, fought off seven German divisions, several of them armoured, until 31 May, when the remaining 35,000 soldiers were forced to surrender after running out of food and ammunition. The Germans accorded the honours of war to the defenders of Lille in recognition of their bravery.

28 May – 4 June [ edit ]

Situation on 4 June 1940; the remaining French rearguard held a sliver of land around Dunkirk

East mole (2009)

The Belgian Army surrendered on 28 May, leaving a large gap to the east of Dunkirk. Several British divisions were rushed in to cover that side. The Luftwaffe flew fewer sorties over Dunkirk on 28 May, switching their attention to the Belgian ports of Ostend and Nieuwpoort. The weather over Dunkirk was not conducive to dive or low-level bombing. The RAF flew 11 patrols and 321 sorties, claiming 23 destroyed for the loss of 13 aircraft. On 28 May, 17,804 soldiers arrived at British ports.

On 29 May, 47,310 British troops were rescued as the Luftwaffe’s Ju 87s exacted a heavy toll on shipping. The British destroyer HMS Grenade was sunk and the French destroyer Mistral was crippled, while her sister ships, each laden with 500 men, were damaged by near misses. British destroyers Jaguar and Verity were badly damaged but escaped the harbour. Two trawlers disintegrated in the attack. Later, the passenger steamer SS Fenella sank with 600 men aboard at the pier but the men were able to get off. The paddle steamer HMS Crested Eagle suffered a direct hit, caught fire, and sank with severe casualties. The raiders also destroyed the two rail-owned ships, the SS Lorina and the SS Normannia. Of the five major German attacks, just two were contested by RAF fighters; the British lost 16 fighters in nine patrols. German losses amounted to 11 Ju 87s destroyed or damaged.

On 30 May, Churchill received word that all British divisions were now behind the defensive lines, along with more than half of the French First Army. By this time, the perimeter ran along a series of canals about 7 miles (11 km) from the coast, in marshy country not suitable for tanks. With the docks in the harbour rendered unusable by German air attacks, senior naval officer Captain (later Admiral) William Tennant initially ordered men to be evacuated from the beaches. When this proved too slow, he re-routed the evacuees to two long stone and concrete breakwaters, called the east and west moles, as well as the beaches. The moles were not designed to dock ships, but despite this, the majority of troops rescued from Dunkirk were taken off this way. Almost 200,000 troops embarked on ships from the east mole (which stretched nearly a mile out to sea) over the next week. James Campbell Clouston, pier master on the east mole, organised and regulated the flow of men along the mole into the waiting ships. Once more, low clouds kept Luftwaffe activity to a minimum. Nine RAF patrols were mounted, with no German formation encountered. The following day, the Luftwaffe sank one transport and damaged 12 others for 17 losses; the British claimed 38 kills, which is disputed. The RAF and Fleet Air Arm lost 28 aircraft.

The next day, an additional 53,823 men were embarked, including the first French soldiers. Lord Gort and 68,014 men were evacuated on 31 May, leaving Major-General Harold Alexander in command of the rearguard. A further 64,429 Allied soldiers departed on 1 June, before the increasing air attacks prevented further daylight evacuation. The British rearguard of 4,000 men left on the night of 2–3 June. An additional 75,000 French troops were retrieved over the nights of 2–4 June, before the operation finally ended. The remainder of the rearguard, 40,000 French troops, surrendered on 4 June.

Of the total 338,226 soldiers, several hundred were unarmed Indian mule handlers on detachment from the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, forming four of the six units of Force K-6 transport. Cypriot muleteers were also present. Three units were successfully evacuated and one captured. Also present at Dunkirk were a small number of French Senegalese soldiers and Moroccans.

Navy [ edit ]

Evacuation routes [ edit ]

Map of the three evacuation routes

Evacuated troops enjoying tea and other refreshments before boarding a train at Dover Station, 26–29 May 1940

Three routes were allocated to the evacuating vessels. The shortest was Route Z, a distance of 39 nautical miles (72 km), but it entailed hugging the French coast and thus ships using it were subject to bombardment from on-shore batteries, particularly in daylight hours. Route X, although the safest from shore batteries, travelled through a particularly heavily mined portion of the Channel. Ships on this route travelled 55 nautical miles (102 km) north out of Dunkirk, proceeded through the Ruytingen Pass, and headed towards the North Goodwin Lightship before heading south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover. The route was safest from surface attacks, but the nearby minefields and sandbanks meant it could not be used at night. The longest of the three was Route Y, a distance of 87 nautical miles (161 km); using this route increased the sailing time to four hours, double the time required for Route Z. This route followed the French coast as far as Bray-Dunes, then turned north-east until reaching the Kwinte Buoy. Here, after making an approximately 135-degree turn, the ships sailed west to the North Goodwin Lightship and headed south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover. Ships on Route Y were the most likely to be attacked by German surface vessels, submarines, and the Luftwaffe.

You knew this was the chance to get home and you kept praying, please God, let us go, get us out, get us out of this mess back to England. To see that ship that came in to pick me and my brother up, it was a most fantastic sight. We saw dog fights up in the air, hoping nothing would happen to us and we saw one or two terrible sights. Then somebody said, there’s Dover, that was when we saw the White Cliffs, the atmosphere was terrific. From hell to heaven was how the feeling was, you felt like a miracle had happened. Harry Garrett, British Army, speaking to Kent Online

Ships [ edit ]

Troops evacuated from Dunkirk on a destroyer about to berth at Dover, 31 May 1940

The Royal Navy provided the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta, 39 destroyers, and many other craft. The Merchant Navy supplied passenger ferries, hospital ships, and other vessels. Britain’s Belgian, Dutch, Canadian, Polish, and French allies provided vessels as well. Admiral Ramsay arranged for around a thousand copies to be made of the required charts, had buoys laid around the Goodwin Sands and down to Dunkirk, and organised the flow of shipping. Larger ships such as destroyers were able to carry about 900 men per trip. The soldiers mostly travelled on the upper decks for fear of being trapped below if the ship sank. After the loss on 29 May of 19 British and French navy ships plus three of the larger requisitioned vessels, the Admiralty withdrew their eight best destroyers for the future defence of the country.

British ships Type of vessel Total engaged Sunk Damaged Cruisers 1 0 1 Destroyers 39 6 19 Sloops, corvettes and gunboats 9 1 1 Minesweepers 36 5 7 Trawlers and drifters 113 17 2 Special service vessels 3 1 0 Ocean boarding vessels 3 1 1 Torpedo boats and anti-submarine boats 13 0 0 Former Dutch schuyts with naval crews 40 4 Unknown Yachts with naval crews 26 3 Unknown Personnel ships 45 8 8 Hospital carriers 8 1 5 Naval motor boats 12 6 Unknown Tugboats 34 3 Unknown Other small craft[note 1] 311 170 Unknown Total British ships 693 226 ^ Does not include ships’ lifeboats and some unrecorded small privately owned craft.

Allied ships Type of vessel Total engaged Sunk Damaged Warships (all types) 49 8 Unknown Other vessels 119 9 Unknown Total Allied ships 168 17 Unknown Grand total 861 243 Unknown

Little ships [ edit ]

A wide variety of small vessels from all over the south of England were pressed into service to aid in the Dunkirk evacuation. They included speedboats, Thames vessels, car ferries, pleasure craft, and many other types of small craft. The most useful proved to be the motor lifeboats, which had a reasonably good capacity and speed. Some boats were requisitioned without the owner’s knowledge or consent. Agents of the Ministry of Shipping, accompanied by a naval officer, scoured the Thames for likely vessels, had them checked for seaworthiness, and took them downriver to Sheerness, where naval crews were to be placed aboard. Due to shortages of personnel, many small craft crossed the Channel with civilian crews.

The first of the “little ships” arrived at Dunkirk on 28 May. The wide sand beaches meant that large vessels could not get anywhere near the shore, and even small craft had to stop about 100 yards (91 m) from the waterline and wait for the soldiers to wade out. In many cases, personnel would abandon their boat upon reaching a larger ship, and subsequent evacuees had to wait for boats to drift ashore with the tide before they could make use of them. In most areas on the beaches, soldiers queued up with their units and patiently awaited their turn to leave. But at times, panicky soldiers had to be warned off at gunpoint when they attempted to rush to the boats out of turn. In addition to ferrying out on boats, soldiers at De Panne and Bray-Dunes constructed improvised jetties by driving rows of abandoned vehicles onto the beach at low tide, anchoring them with sandbags, and connecting them with wooden walkways.

Aftermath [ edit ]

Analysis [ edit ]

Troops landed from Dunkirk

27 May – 4 June 1940 Date Beaches Harbour Total 27 May — 7,669 7,669 28 May 5,930 11,874 17,804 29 May 13,752 33,558 47,310 30 May 29,512 24,311 53,823 31 May 22,942 45,072 68,014 1 June 17,348 47,081 64,429 2 June 6,695 19,561 26,256 3 June 1,870 24,876 26,746 4 June 622 25,553 26,175 Totals 98,671 239,555 338,226

Before the operation was completed, the prognosis had been gloomy, with Churchill warning the House of Commons on 28 May to expect “hard and heavy tidings”. Subsequently, Churchill referred to the outcome as a miracle, and the British press presented the evacuation as a “disaster turned to triumph” so successfully that Churchill had to remind the country in a speech to the House of Commons on 4 June that “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.” Andrew Roberts comments that the confusion over the Dunkirk evacuation is illustrated by two of the best books on it being called Strange Defeat and Strange Victory.

The 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was cut off south of the Somme, by the German “race to the sea”, in addition to the 1st Armoured Division and a host of logistical and labour troops. Some of the latter had been formed into the improvised Beauman Division. At the end of May, further elements of two divisions began deploying to France with the hope of establishing a Second BEF. The majority of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was forced to surrender on 12 June. However, almost 192,000 Allied personnel, including 144,000 British, were evacuated through various French ports from 15 to 25 June under the codename Operation Aerial. Remaining British forces under the French Tenth Army as Norman Force retreated towards Cherbourg. The Germans marched into Paris on 14 June and France surrendered eight days later.

The more than 100,000 French troops evacuated from Dunkirk were quickly and efficiently shuttled to camps in various parts of south-western England, where they were temporarily lodged before being repatriated. British ships ferried French troops to Brest, Cherbourg, and other ports in Normandy and Brittany, although only about half of the repatriated troops were redeployed against the Germans before the surrender of France. For many French soldiers, the Dunkirk evacuation represented only a few weeks’ delay before being killed or captured by the German army after their return to France. Of the French soldiers evacuated from France in June 1940, about 3,000 joined Charles de Gaulle’s Free French army in Britain.

In France, the unilateral British decision to evacuate through Dunkirk rather than counter-attack to the south, and the perceived preference of the Royal Navy for evacuating British forces at the expense of the French, led to some bitter resentment. According to Churchill, French Admiral François Darlan originally ordered that the British forces should receive preference, but on 31 May, he intervened at a meeting in Paris to order that the evacuation should proceed on equal terms and that the British would form the rearguard. In fact, the 35,000 men who finally surrendered after covering the final evacuations were mostly French soldiers of the 2nd Light Mechanized and the 68th Infantry Divisions. Their resistance allowed the evacuation effort to be extended to 4 June, on which date another 26,175 Frenchmen were transported to England.

The evacuation was presented to the German public as an overwhelming and decisive German victory. On 5 June 1940, Hitler stated, “Dunkirk has fallen! 40,000 French and English troops are all that remains of the formerly great armies. Immeasurable quantities of materiel have been captured. The greatest battle in the history of the world has come to an end.”[a] Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German armed forces high command) announced the event as “the greatest annihilation battle of all time”.

Casualties [ edit ]

Bourrasque slowly sinking slowly sinking

During the entire campaign, from 10 May until the armistice with France on 22 June, the BEF suffered 68,000 casualties. This included 3,500 killed and 13,053 wounded. Most heavy equipment had to be abandoned during the various evacuations, resulting in the loss of 2,472 pieces of artillery, 20,000 motorcycles, nearly 65,000 other vehicles, 416,000 long tons (423,000 t) of stores, more than 75,000 long tons (76,000 t) of ammunition, and 162,000 long tons (165,000 t) of fuel. Almost all of the 445 British tanks despatched to France were abandoned.

Six British and three French destroyers were sunk, along with nine other major vessels. In addition, 19 destroyers were damaged. Over 200 British and Allied sea craft were sunk, with a similar number damaged. The Royal Navy’s most significant losses in the operation were six destroyers:

Grafton , sunk by U-62 on 29 May

, sunk by on 29 May Grenade , sunk by air attack at Dunkirk on 29 May

, sunk by air attack at Dunkirk on 29 May Wakeful , sunk by a torpedo from the E-boat S-30 on 29 May

, sunk by a torpedo from the E-boat on 29 May Basilisk, Havant, and Keith, sunk by air attack off the beaches on 1 June

The French Navy lost three destroyers:

Bourrasque , mined off Nieuport on 30 May

, mined off Nieuport on 30 May Siroco , sunk by the E-boats S-23 and S-26 on 31 May

, sunk by the E-boats and on 31 May Le Foudroyant, sunk by air attack off the beaches on 1 June

The RAF lost 145 aircraft, of which at least 42 were Spitfires, while the Luftwaffe lost 156 aircraft in operations during the nine days of Operation Dynamo, including 35 destroyed by Royal Navy ships (plus 21 damaged) during the six days from 27 May to 1 June.

For every seven soldiers who escaped through Dunkirk, one man became a prisoner of war. The majority of these prisoners were sent on forced marches into Germany. Prisoners reported brutal treatment by their guards, including beatings, starvation, and murder. Another complaint was that German guards kicked over buckets of water that had been left at the roadside by French civilians, for the marching prisoners to drink.

Many of the prisoners were marched to the city of Trier, with the march taking as long as 20 days. Others were marched to the river Scheldt and were sent by barge to the Ruhr. The prisoners were then sent by rail to prisoner of war camps in Germany. The majority (those below the rank of corporal) then worked in German industry and agriculture for the remainder of the war.

Those of the BEF who died or were captured and have no known grave are commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial.

Dunkirk Jack [ edit ]

Dunkirk Jack

The St George’s Cross defaced with the arms of Dunkirk is the warranted house flag of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. It is known as the Dunkirk Jack. The flag may be flown from the jack staff only by civilian vessels that took part in the Dunkirk rescue operation.

Portrayals [ edit ]

Films [ edit ]

Television [ edit ]

Books [ edit ]

See also [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]

^ Original German: “Dünkirchen ist gefallen! 40 000 Franzosen und Engländer sind als letzter Rest einstiger großer Armeen gefangen. Unübersehbares Material wurde erbeutet. Damit ist die größte Schlacht der Weltgeschichte beendet.”

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

The True Story of Dunkirk, As Told Through the Heroism of the “Medway Queen”

The crew of the Medway Queen was taking on an unusually large load of supplies for their next mission. The cook’s assistant remarked, “Enough grub has been put aboard us to feed a ruddy army,” writes Walter Lord in The Miracle of Dunkirk. As it turned out, that was precisely the idea. Little did the crew know, but the Medway Queen was about to be sent across the English Channel on one of the most daring rescue missions of World War II: Operation Dynamo, better known as the evacuation of Dunkirk.

In the late spring of 1940, European powers were still engaged in what had been dubbed the “Phoney War.” Despite Germany’s invasion of Poland the previous September, France and Britain had done little more than assemble troops on their side of the defensive lines and glower at Adolf Hitler’s troops. But on May 10, the Germans launched a blitzkrieg attack on the Netherlands and Belgium; by May 15, they’d broken through French defenses and turned towards the English Channel. Within a week, around 400,000 Allied soldiers—comprising the bulk of the British Expeditionary Forces, three French armies and the remnants of the Belgian troops—were surrounded on the northern coast of France, concentrated near the coastal city of Dunkirk.

But rather than strike while the troops were stuck on the beaches, Hitler gave his Panzer troops a halt order. Perhaps he was worried about a British counter-attack, or he thought the German air force could overwhelm the Allied forces at Dunkirk without the help of ground artillery; the reason for his hesitation has never been entirely explained. But it gave the British military just enough time to organize an evacuation.

When Operation Dynamo began late on May 26, British officers charged with organizing the frantic escape estimated that only 45,000 men might be saved. But over the next eight days, nearly 1,000 British ships—both military and civilian—crossed the Channel repeatedly to rescue 338,226 people, while the Royal Air Force fought the Luftwaffe above. Another 220,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from the French ports of Saint-Malo, Brest, Cherbourg and Saint-Nazaire by the British.

The Dunkirk evacuation inspired one of Winston Churchill’s most dramatic speeches on June 4, when he told the House of Commons, “We shall go on to the end… we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches… we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

The events of late May, 1940, became the stuff of legend—the “little ships” piloted by civilians were alternately lauded or ignored (those that sunk made it harder for other ships to get to shore to rescue the soldiers, and many of the civilian ships were actually manned by Navy personnel).

Among the first to traverse the approximately 60 miles across the Channel to Dunkirk, and the last to leave on the final day of operations, was the Medway Queen. The former pleasure cruiser was 180 feet long, with paddle wheels on both sides of its hull. Built in 1924, the ship carried passengers on short tours on the River Thames and around Britain’s southeast side.

When it was called to the war effort, the boat was repainted and retrofitted with minesweeping gear to patrol the Straits of Dover for German mines, plus anti-aircraft machine guns. Before assisting in the evacuation at Dunkirk, the boat had already accomplished several important missions for the British war effort. The vessel transported children to safer locations around the country, and was then charged with surveilling the rivers around London and the Straits of Dover for mines. But nothing in the ship’s early war experience could’ve prepared its crew for Operation Dynamo.

On the beaches of Dunkirk, chaos reigned. Soldiers formed lines into the water or onto the eastern pier (called a “mole”) and stood in their places for up to three days, without sleep, food or drink. All the while, German planes dropped bombs across the beach and onto the ships attempting to rescue the men. One soldier named Brian Bishop, who boarded the Medway Queen on June 1, described the terrifying experience of waiting to be picked up:

“The mole had been bombed in several places and across the gaps gangplanks had been placed. It was difficult carrying stretchers along it and then having to lift them shoulder height across the gangplanks. Just as we were moving on an officer examined our stretcher case and said, ‘He’s dead, tip him out and fetch another.’”

Even after Bishop made it to the ship, the soldiers couldn’t stop themselves from panicking when the German planes flew overhead, dive-bombing and machine-gunning the boat during its trip across the Channel. “When we were attacked the first few times everyone rushed to one side or to the other side when the planes were approaching,” Bishop recalled. “Someone on the bridge bellowed over a megaphone, ‘Sit down and keep still.’”

For the crew of the Medway Queen, the operation was just as strenuous and terrifying. On one overnight trip across the Channel, the ship’s paddle wheels churned up the glowing phosphorescence in the water, leaving a visible wake that made the 180-foot ship an easy target for German bombers. But the crew of the ship “were nothing if not resourceful,” said Sub-Lieutenant Graves. “[We] devised oil bags which were lowered over the bow… to break the force of heavy waves. This was most successful, our brilliant wakes disappeared,” Graves said in Dunkirk: From Disaster to Deliverance, Testimonies of the Last Survivors.

After they’d settled the issue of their shimmering wake, the crew still had to contend with the ship’s funnel, whose billowing soot caught fire. They dumped water down it to quench the flames, which one man in the engine room furiously protested, saying, “I do not intend to be f***ing well drowned on the job!” And the cook and his assistant were hard-pressed to prepare meals for the thousands of men they picked up in a galley the size of a small closet.

Although the trip only took several hours each way, the loading process could be lengthy and sometimes required picking up men from other rescue vessels that were hit by German planes. Boats went back and forth across the Channel at all times of day, going as quickly as possible to rescue as many as possible

The crew of the Medway “went into extreme danger seven nights out of eight,” writes historian Richard Halton, a member of the Medway Queen Preservation Society and the author of The Medway Queen, in an email. “They spent most of the day cleaning the ship, restocking stores, fuel and ammunition and then sailed for France each evening. They did this repeatedly despite obvious severe casualties in other vessels.”

The Medway Queen finished its last trip on June 4, after being hit by a nearby vessel that was shelled by the Germans early that morning. Despite damage to the starboard paddle box, the captain managed to steer the ship back to Dover, where its arrival was heralded by the sound of sirens from ships all over Dover Harbor. The remarkable success and bravery of the Medway Queen’s crew resulted in the captain, Lieutenant A.T. Cook, and Sub-lieutenant J.D. Graves receiving the Distinguished Service Cross, and several other crewmembers receiving awards as well. While Halton notes the statistics are unreliable, it’s estimated the Medway Queen rescued 7,000 men and shot down three enemy aircraft.

“Medway Queen made more trips than most other ships. For a small ship lightly armed she did remarkably well,” Halton said.

At the end of the battle, Dunkirk was left in ruins and 235 vessels were lost, along with at least 5,000 soldiers. The Germans managed to capture 40,000 Allied soldiers, who were forced into hard labor for the remainder of the war. But even though the operation was a retreat with heavy casualties, the rescue of nearly half a million troops from Dunkirk went on to be one of the most important victories of the war and may well have changed its outcome. As historian Patrick Wilson writes, “Rarely do people … give enough credit to the Royal Navy and the larger vessels that were responsible for rescuing the massive majority of troops. Dunkirk was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.”

As for the Medway Queen, the ship returned to its work as a pleasure boat at the end of the war and even appeared in several movies. When the boat was retired and about to become scrap metal, a group of history lovers purchased the boat and have been working on various restoration and preservation projects since the 1980s. Today the Medway Queen is docked in Gillingham, not far from London, and is cared for by the Medway Queen Preservation Society. “In preserving the ship we keep alive memories of past ages and the stories of the people that were involved,” Halton said.

Christopher Nolan on his long crossing to Dunkirk: Howell

Look closely at a map of the coasts of England and France and the narrow strip of water separating the historic port towns of Dover and Dunkirk seems like an easy jump.

That’s what filmmaker Christopher Nolan thought, too, when he, his girlfriend Emma Thomas and a friend made the trek in a small sailing boat in the early 1990s. They wanted to recreate the English Channel crossing made by many brave Britons in 1940 during the Second World War, in the miraculous mass troop evacuation Nolan thunderously recreates in Dunkirk, his new film.

“We did it one Easter, just sort of before the time of year where the (wartime) events really took place,” Nolan says from Los Angeles.

“And it was such a difficult and arduous crossing. It was really, really tough; the channel is no joke. It took us about 19 hours to get there, much longer than we thought. We were absolutely freezing. It felt dangerous and impossible and that was without people dropping bombs on us and going into a war zone. And so that cemented for me an absolute respect for the people in real life who did this extraordinary thing.”

Read more:

Dunkirk’s disorienting brilliance is a victory for Christopher Nolan: review

What you need to know about the Battle of Dunkirk

It would be many years, films and experiences later before the London-born Nolan, now 46, would set his Dunkirk fascination to celluloid. In the interim he married and started a family with Thomas, who is also his production partner, and he’s crafted some of this century’s most celebrated films: Memento, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar and more.

The Friday release of Dunkirk finds Nolan at the top of his game and eager to talk about his film, and how he built suspense out of a story everybody thinks they already know:

Dunkirk is an amazingly intense experience. I felt like I was watching virtual reality.

It’s funny you say that. I call it “virtual reality without the goggles.”

The release of Dunkirk is being described as the largest 70mm film release this century. Is this true?

Yes. With Interstellar, I think we did 10 70mm prints, which performed very well. I very much liked the look of them. And then Quentin Tarantino and Harvey Weinstein were able to put together 100 70mm projectors (for The Hateful Eight) and get those out there. So we’ve been able to build on what they did and take it even a little further.

The sound design is also quite something. The dialogue sometimes gets lost in the roar of the war, but the intention and the emotion behind it always gets through.

That’s a very good way of describing it. I want to film a story visually, primarily visually, in the particular case of this subject matter. So I wrote a very short script and stripped out almost all the dialogue in places. So of any film I’ve done, this is by far the most visually told and the one in which the dialogue in a way matters the least. It’s there where it’s there, doing something useful. But I wanted to tell a story through sound and vision in a way that was less verbal and more experiential. I really just want to put you there, put you in it. Rather than explaining to you what something should feel like, I wanted you to feel it.

It seems that Dunkirk would have been a far different film if it had been made decades ago, when war memories were still fresh. There would have been a push to Hollywoodize everything, as has been the case with other accounts of the evacuation.

I think it’s true that storytelling varies over time and it changes with distance from the events it portrays. What we wanted to do was research the real events, to really look at the reality behind the fairy tale we grow up with. And what you find is, the more you know about what actually happened — like if you get on one of these boats and you make that crossing — the more impressive the story is, in truth. The real version of the story, I think, is so much more impressive than a fairy-tale version. I actually just got back from London, where we screened the film for some of the veterans who had actually been there.

What was their reaction?

I wouldn’t want to speak for them, and for their family members who were also there, but it was very emotional and very, very positive. I really can speak to my experience at that screening, standing there, looking at that row of guys who had actually been there. That was the most scared I’ve ever been at any screening situation, or anything remotely like that — I thought I was losing reality! There’s a sudden sense of awesome responsibility.

You approach the concept of heroism and its flip side cowardice in interesting ways in Dunkirk. The heroes in the film aren’t at all showy about it; they’re just getting the job done. And it’s easy to call someone a coward for jumping the rescue queue, for example, but he’s also desperate to survive. Definitions blur.

The film is not so much about individual heroism as the individual survival mechanism and a communal heroism. It’s the idea that flawed human beings are doing their best in the situation they’re in and dealing with their own survival, dealing with their own humanity. I think there’s tremendous optimism from the Dunkirk story that can all add up to a communal heroism of extraordinary magnitude.

You don’t show any politicians in the film. There’s no shot of Winston Churchill, for example, making his famous “We will fight them on the beaches” speech.

I wanted it to be experiential and true to the subjectivity of the storytelling. So these guys on the beach, they were not privy to what Churchill was thinking in his study. They weren’t seeing the generals in rooms with things being pushed around a map. And that’s one of the things that made the experience, I think, so terrifying for them. They didn’t know what was going to happen; they didn’t know what was being planned. And it was only after they got through this experience that they could then process it through the lens of the politician. The lens of culture. It’s like, OK, what have we just been through?

Speaking of missing characters, the German troops are barely glimpsed in Dunkirk. It makes them seem all the more threatening.

I spent a lot of time reviewing the mechanics of suspense, because this film needed to be all about suspense. The unseeing, the unknown, is inevitably more terrifying. The idea of shots coming, the sounds of planes coming, you can’t tell where they’re coming from, you can’t see them: that’s the real-life terror that these guys were dealing with. And that’s what I wanted to convey.

Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.

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