-Source A shows both sides of Taylor’s statement, that Dunkirk was both a great deliverance and a great disaster. It shows that ships did escape with soldiers aboard and this was a great deliverance for Britain in the view that many soldiers were successfully evacuated from Dunkirk. This source also shows the disastrous side of
Dunkirk. It shows that the German military and Luftwaffe sank many boats that were taking a number of the Allied soldiers back to Britain. From my own knowledge I know that the events shown in the painting did happen for instance I know that there would have been fighter plane dogfights and thousands upon thousands of soldiers fleeing from the beaches onto the water vessels. This source is quite reliable as the artist was sent to Dunkirk and saw the events as they happened, however he worked for the British Government, and so the painting could be biased towards the Allies and supporting the great deliverance side of Taylor’s statement. The purpose of doing this would be to greatly improve the morale of British citizens.
-Source B supports that Dunkirk was neither a deliverance nor disaster for the British army. It shows an unspectacular scene compared to Source A as it doesn’t show and disruptions. It shows this as the soldiers are in orderly lines, there is no rush to get anywhere, there is no bombing of these soldiers taking place and there are no dead bodies. From my own knowledge I know that this photo is more than likely to have been taken before the bombing raids and the attack on the British soldiers started, as there are no boats shown in the photograph, when we know that boats were there when they were being attacked to take the soldiers home and this would explain the lack of disruption. Furthermore, photographs only show a snapshot in time, and as a result this source can prove neither that Dunkirk was a deliverance or disaster for the British.
-Source C can support both claims that Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster. It shows this as soldiers are firing at planes with normal rifles, and could be succeeding in destroying them. The soldiers shooting at the sky and what almost looks like an explosion in the background show this. However the dark object in the background could just be a ship that had come to evacuate the soldiers. Which would mean that the evacuation was a complete disaster because the soldiers did not have the correct weaponry to destroy the planes and they had to resort to their normal rifles.
Also its reliability must be taken into account. It is not known whether this photograph is real or staged as there are no actual planes in this photograph that we can see. The photo may have been edited if it was real to show the soldiers as being more victorious/desperate than perhaps they were.
-Source D shows a Government minister’s thoughts on the events at Dunkirk. He manages to change the facts of disaster into points of a great deliverance for Britain. This shows both the deliverance and disaster sides of Dunkirk, admitting to great losses in equipment but contrasting to that that the men have ‘gained immeasurably in experience of warfare.’ However as he was the Minister of War he would have been unlikely to have actually witnessed the events himself and could only have made the speech from the reports of others. And thus this source cannot be completely reliable.
-Source E shows more that Dunkirk was a complete deliverance. It says that the B.E.F came back came back with pride and happiness. It praised the British boats for rescuing the British and repeated how fearless they were. However as this is a newspaper article it is likely to be extremely biased. As we know the Newspapers in the Allies and Axis countries were used repetitively to keep British Morale high.
-Source F, by AJP Taylor is a source that backs up the reasons why he thinks
Dunkirk was a great deliverance and great disaster. It tells us many of the facts that led him to create the statement. As Taylor was a British historian he would have considered all evidence before making his point and any other conclusion. As a result, this source shows maximum reliability, as he backs up his point with lots of evidence.
-With each source taken into account, we can see that Dunkirk was both a great deliverance and a great disaster. However, we should also take into account the fact that Germany ‘allowed’ the majority of the British army to escape. This point shows that even if the evacuation is seen as a great deliverance it could have been completely different. In a summary, due to the evacuation of many soldiers and almost the entire of the B.E.F which made up the all of the fully trained British soldiers. I think Dunkirk was more a deliverance and a blessing in disguise. It showed that the whole of Britain was ready to protect their army and was ready for war; this served as a massive morale booster.