The Battle of Dunkirk or the Dunkirk Evacuation or Operation Dynamo (British) was an evacuation of British and French troops carried out from May 26 to June 4, 1940, during the early stages of World War II. The evacuation is considered as one of the key events of the war and is popularly referred to as the "Dunkirk miracle". Over the course of nine days, a total of approximately 338,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk, far surpassing the original estimate of 45,000. The success of the operation not only saved a substantial portion of the British Expeditionary Force but also provided a glimmer of hope during a dark chapter of the war.
Prelude:[]
German invasion of France:[]
- On 10 May 1940, Germany launched the invasion of France. Army Group A, at the center of the offensive moved towards the French coast, pushing the French first army and the British expeditionary force towards the sea. Towards the north, Von Boxx's Army Broup B further pinned the allied force. Soon, three German armies- von Claugars 4th army, von Choltitz 18th army and von Raichenau's 6th army were moving in. On the 4th of June, German troops entered the port of Dunkirk. However, the German armies did not defeat or capture the hundreds of thousands of troops they had penned there.
Stop Order and Surrender of Belgium:[]
- By the 23rd of May, the Belgian forces had been isolated and the British and First French forced against the sea. German general commanding army Group A, General Erich von Manstein, issued the famous stop order. His decision was supported by the Air Marshall Hermann Goring , who assured Adolf Hitler that his Luftwaffe would finish the trapped allied force. The allied commander, General Wagon proposed a counterattack to link up with forces further south. However, the british commander, General Gort decided to retreat the BEF to the port of Dunkirk, from where they could be evacuated by sea. On May 27th, without consulting his allies, king Leopold of Belgium offered his surrender to the Germans.
Retreat To Dunkirk:[]
The Dunkirk Perimeter:[]
Beginning on May 26th, 1940, the allied troops conducted an orderly phased withdrawal to the port of Dunkirk. They formed a perimeter of 25 kilometers ,defining a pocket 10 to 12 kilometers deep. To prevent their equipment from falling into the hands of the enemy, the BEF disabled all of their tanks, spiked and abandoned their guns and fell back. The efficient evacuation of British troops was underway. Royal Navy commander, Admiral Bertram Ramsay, who had been alerted as early as May 20th about a possible need of an evacuation, put together a large collection of vessels both military and civilian in order to carry the troops assembling at Dunkirk. The German armies put the port under siege. The British and French First armies held their ground withstanding heavy artillery bombardment and bombing by the Luftwaffe on their positions. The 3rd of June was the last day of the evacuation. On the 4th, German troops hoisted a swastika in the port from which much of the force had been evacuated. The remaining allied troops, most of them French, were taken prisoner.
The Evacuation:[]
The War Office made the decision to evacuate British forces on 25 May. In the nine days from 27 May to 4 June 338,226 men escaped, including 139,997 French, Polish, and Belgian troops, together with a small number of Dutch soldiers, aboard 861 vessels (of which 243 were sunk during the operation). B. H. Liddell Hart wrote that Fighter Command lost 106 aircraft over Dunkirk and the Luftwaffe lost about 135, some of which were shot down by the French Navy and the Royal Navy. MacDonald wrote in 1986 that the British losses were 177 aircraft and German losses 240.
25,000 men had been taken off by the end of the second day of the operation. By May 31st, the day of the largest total taken off, the number had risen to 68,014.
Air Action:[]
Herman Goring assured Hitler that his Luftwaffe would be affective in destroying the retreating enemy. However, the action of the Luftwaffe was restricted. The German bombers could not operate at night. Visibility was minimum with frequent mists although calm seas favored the evacuation. The Royal Air Force was able to sufficiently harass the German aircraft to limit their effect. By the end of operation Dynamo, the RAF lost 177 aircraft while the Germans lost 240.
Aftermath[]
The evacuation immensely boosted the morale of the British population and filled in them a will to fight. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in view of this operation gave his famous. "We shall fight in the beaches, we shall never surrender speech". The British now had hundreds of thousands of men to carry on the war. A free French Legion was created in Britain which consisted of the French troops evacuated from Dunkirk. The failure of the Germans to stop this evacuation is considered to be a grave mistake, eventually leading to their downfall.