Operation Dynamo

The “Miracle of Dunkirk”

Vicious dogfights unfolded between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force (RAF) with the latter trying to protect the soldiers on the ground. Many of the RAF pilots were accused of fleeing and not helping the evacuation. The truth was that the dogfights took place mostly far away from the beaches where the soldiers could not see them. Luckily, the effectiveness of the German planes was limited since their airfields were far away and there were only two days of good flying conditions. The Germans dropped leaflets in English and French on the Allied armies. The flyers showed a map of the situation and prompted the soldiers to surrender. Besides the Luftwaffe’s bombs and strafing, German heavy artillery shelled Dunkirk also. As the water supply was knocked out, the resulting fires could not be extinguished. Eventually, most of Dunkirk was destroyed in the fighting. Over 1,000 civilians fell victim to the bombardment.

During the evacuation, all the heavy equipment had to be left behind. 20,000 motorcycles, 2,472 guns and around 65,000 other vehicles, including 445 British tanks, were abandoned. It took a lot of time for the British Army to regain full operational capability. Six British and three French destroyers plus nine other major vessels were sunk and more than 200 Allied sea craft were lost.

The British press portrayed the operation as a “disaster turned to triumph”, highlighting the role of the “Little Ships”. As opposed to the initial estimate of 45,000 soldiers to be rescued, a total of 338,226 men were evacuated, including some 140,000 French. Still, Churchill in his famous speech delivered on June 4, stating that Britain shall never surrender, 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.”

Four years later, when the Germans were on the retreat after the Battle of Normandy, German forces refused to hand over the fortified city that was already heavily damaged by Allied bombing. Since the town was not important anymore, the Allies simply by-passed it. The fortress, under the command of German Admiral Friedrich Frisius, eventually unconditionally surrendered to the commander of the Czechoslovak forces, Brigadier General Alois Liška, on May 9, 1945.

The latest movie adaptation of the evacuation was the film called Dunkirk,directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2017. The beach scenes were shot at the actual beach in Dunkirk with thousands of extras involved. The production also included twenty original “Little Ships”.