What happened at Dunkirk? 338,226 British and French soldiers were evacuated from the beach at Dunkirk over the space of 8 days. That was far better than anyone in the British government expected, but about 20,000 soldiers died and 90,000 were captured by the Germans. Along with that, 300 ships were sunk, 100 planes were lost, and all of the British army’s vehicles had to be left in France.
The evacuation at Dunkirk came about because of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg fighting style. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war. Britain was sworn to help defend France, but everybody in the government could still remember the horrors of World War 1 and they didn’t want to get involved in another war like it. Therefore, they only sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), which was 10 divisions, roughly 300,000 men, across the channel to help France fight. With hindsight, this was never going to be enough to stop Hitler. The French army and the BEF headed through Belgium to make a line to stop the Germans cutting through and entering France. They didn’t think they needed to defend the main border between France and Germany because of the defenses of the Maginot Line and because of the thick forests there. Everyone thought the Germans would have to come through Belgium. The Germans did exactly what everyone didn’t expect and they came straight through the thick forests. Not only that, they came fast. The idea of Blitzkrieg was speed. The Germans didn’t stop and very quickly cut the French army and BEF off. They retreated back towards the coast and the major ports there, but the Germans very rapidly took Calais, which only left Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of French and British forces were left on the beach with the Germans closing in. Churchill, who had only just been made prime minister, knew that if they didn’t get these troops back, defending Britain would be very hard. He hoped to be able to recover 10%. They ended up recovering over 80%. So, what happened? There were several reasons why the evacuation was possible. Here are six of them.
The beach at Dunkirk had a long shelf, which made it impossible for large boats to get close enough to load soldiers. They could anchor further out and ship men from shore on smaller boats, but that took a long time. Luckily, there were two long stone and concrete walls called moles that stretched out into the sea. They were there to break up the waves coming into the harbor, but they proved perfect for docking large ships. Large ships, such as destroyers, could come next to the moles and pick up people directly. A destroyer could carry about 900 soldiers and over 200,000 soldiers were evacuated this way over the eight days. Without these moles, the evacuation would have been impossible.
The second reason was the French. They put up a ferocious defense of some of the towns around Dunkirk, such as Lille, to slow down the Germans. They were fighting just as much to protect their homeland as they were to help the British forces, but it worked. The extra time the Germans had to spend getting past Lille was precious.
The third reason was the weather. The Germans had bombed Dunkirk and the smoke from the fires was thick. Luckily, for most of the eight days, the wind blew the smoke out over the beach, blocking out the view of the beach from the air and protecting the soldiers from the Luftwaffe. The wind was also gentle enough that it didn’t cause much surf for boats to get through or soldiers waiting in the water to deal with.
The fourth reason was the Royal Air Force. They flew sorties further in to France and shot down many German bombers that would have been targeting the fleeing ships. Many bombers got through, and many ships were sunk, but without the RAF, the number would have been far higher.
The fifth reason, and probably the most important, was that the Germans stopped advancing. A halt order was given and to this day no one really knows the reason why. If Hitler had sent his troops in, he could very well have destroyed the BEF, which was pretty much the entire British army at the time. His troops were exhausted after the long fight across France. He also didn’t want to lose men, weapons, tanks, and planes that he would need to take the rest of France. There is also some argument that he let the BEF go, possibly as a good will gesture to persuade Winston Churchill to surrender. No one will ever know.
The sixth reason were all of the ships that the Royal Navy had available. The had cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers, hospital ships, and they also commandeered ferries and ocean going boats. All of these boats docked at the mole and helped bring over 200,000 of the soldiers home. The rest of the soldiers were picked up by the famous “little boats”, an armada of tiny boats that were requisitioned by the Royal Navy and sailed across the channel. These boats could get in closer to the beach and the picked up 2,000 people an hour, ferrying about 100,000 soldiers from the beach to larger boats anchored further out. Without these boats, a lot of people wouldn’t have made it. However, nearly all of these boats were sailed by sailors from the Royal Navy. Very few of them were crewed by civilians. The civilian flotilla of little boats was a myth introduced by the press, and probably by the government, at the time. Even though 80% of the BEF soldiers were saved, all of the weapons, tanks, and planes, had to be left behind. Britain was almost defenseless. Churchill needed to rally the people at home to fight a potential invasion. He played up he civilian role in the rescue at Dunkirk to inspire the people of Britain. It worked. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dunkirk-evacuations
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/7-photos-from-the-dunkirk-evacuations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Expeditionary_Force_(World_War_II)
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40641801
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/31/johnezard
Image By Unknown author – http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//37/media-37332/large.jpgThis photograph NYP 68075 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25312782