He felt that the army were being overly optimistic; according to the source the army had great faith in the navy, it inspired them to carry on and gave them a sense of hope. But Kerr genuinely felt that many men could not be rescued as they had a small and hopeless navy. Although in hindsight many more men that he ever though could be evacuated were actually evacuated. Around 338,000 soldiers were rescued, 198,000 of these being British and 139,000 being French.
The second source, source B describes a supposed scene from the battle, where German Fighter planes cut through those columns of soldiers like a reaper slicing through corn. The sentences are very short and to the point. “Like a reaper slicing through corn” suggests that the German machine guns were successful at killing many of the British men. They do, however, seem to be exaggerated. When comparing source A to source B, source B has a completely different opinion to source A about the Battle. Source A talks about how the men were the odds and ends of an army but sources B and C talk about how brave and heroic the soldiers were. By describing columns of soldiers it appears that there to me lots of men to be rescued also there is no sign of the RAF in the photo, it appears that they are not there helping. When describing “the bomb went wide”, it makes it seem as though many of the men were lucky not be harmed, and they were not skilled. The source was written by a seaman, manning one of the boats from the minesweeper. This was a small boat rescuing people from the land to bigger boats. This was only one end of the beach and very close to it, further up the beach and further away there may have been less chaos and organisation compared to where he was. Also because he was closer, he would have had a clearer view and better knowledge of the conditions of the beaches.
The final source, source C describes one man opinion of another mans bravery during the evacuation of Dunkirk. The source illustrates one mans outlook on a RASC sergeant. According to the author he was the “bravest man I ever saw”. This represents his individual bravery towards the German bombers, it tells the reader that there were men that were heroic and fought against the Germans single handily. When the German Heinkel planes came back to attack, he “grabbed his gun and shot at them”. This then tells us, that some men knew what they were doing and had some bravery and also some skill. The source shows a sense of desperation and no organisation though when it describes the RASC sergeant “blazing away at the Germans”. As it shows that there was panic and that he was lucky he had his gun to shoot at the Germans. Source C contradicts source A, as source A portrays that the few present men were completely useless, where as source C demonstrates the bravery of this one man although there was still a lack of organisation.
In conclusion, none of the sources have dates with them, so they could have been written at anytime. This makes them less reliable because if they were written after the time of the evacuation, it is likely details may have been forgotten or made up. This makes the source not as accurate since half of it may not even be correct information. Source A was probably written some time after the Battle. All 3 sources were personal accounts written by men on board the ships. This is a disadvantage because there is no information from the men who were contributing in other parts of the country for example in the army or from the civilians. Also none of them were on the beach itself therefore wouldn’t know the position or attitudes of those men who were trying to escape of the beach. This would make their comments biased and even less reliable. Sources B and C are written by men who were working the ships, and were not trained officers, while source A was written by Commander Thomas Kerr, who was one of the naval officers sent to organise it. Therefore his opinion will be more reliable than the others as he was in a high up and respected position of the navy. Also he would therefore have had an overview of everything and had a better idea of the plans for the evacuation. What could make it even more reliable was if we had a German point of view in one of these sources, because they are all from British men therefore only have one countries point of view of it all. If there was a German point of view, the reader could learn about the evacuation from their knowledge and gain information as they may have had a different experience as they were the attackers.
Although the sources are not useful because they are all only one mans opinion of the evacuation and it took place at only one place of the beach. For perhaps on another part of the beach they were lined up in columns with great organisation. Furthermore, this was only one moment out of the whole of the Battle, on other days it may have been worse or more unperturbed for the men. Also he was in the navy; there is nothing in the source telling the reader about what the Battle was like from the armies or citizens point of view.