The evacuation of 350,000 Allied troops from the
beaches of Dunkerque from May 27 to June 4, 1940, has become a heroic
wartime legend. However, this legend conveniently conceals the fact
that the Allies, through their own incompetence, almost lost their
entire armed forces in the first few weeks of the war.
The German army had taken just ten days to reach the English Channel
and could very easily have cut off the Allied armies. Unable to believe
the ease with which he had overcome a numerically superior enemy,
however, Hitler ordered his generals to halt their lightning advance,
giving Allied forces trapped in the Pas-de-Calais enough time to
organize Operation Dynamo, the largest wartime evacuation ever
undertaken. Initially it was hoped that around 10,000 men would be
saved, but thanks to low-lying cloud and the assistance of over 1750
vessels - among them pleasure cruisers, fishing boats and river ferries
- 140,000 French and over 200,000 British soldiers were successfully
shipped back to England.
In France, the ratio of British to French evacuees caused bitter resentment, since Churchill had promised that the two sides would go bras dessus, bras dessous
("arm in arm"). Meanwhile, the British media played up the "remarkable
discipline" of the troops as they waited to embark, the "victory" of
the RAF over the Luftwaffe and the "disintegration" of the French army
all around. In fact, there was widespread indiscipline in the early
stages as men fought for places on board; the battle for the skies was
evenly matched; and the French fought long and hard to cover the whole
operation, some 150,000 of them remaining behind to become prisoners of
war. In addition, the Allies lost seven destroyers and 177 fighter
planes and were forced to abandon over 60,000 vehicles.
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