The Decoy attack through Belgium Second attack through the Ardennes
During the period of 14th-20th May, the German forces had sped across France and reached Abbevile on the 20th. They had now divided the French and British into two. The British army was now trapped between the German armies in front of them and behind them.
The commander Lord Gort of the BEF had only one solution left that could save the whole of the BEF army from being destroyed. This was to retreat to the port of Dunkirk where the German force had not closed in on. From Dunkirk, hopefully the BEF would be evacuated back to Britain. To make this plan successful they would have to escape as fast as they could. Surprisingly on the 24th of May, Hitler ordered a ‘Halt Order’ to the German Panzers. This gave the BEF and some of the French army to reach Dunkirk and arrange defences to allow the evacuation to take place as soon as possible.
The British retreat to Dunkirk
The German army was confused to why Hitler had given this order. There were many reasons for this, but the main one would be that he thought the power of the air force Luftwaffe could finish off the BEF it self and he wanted to save the Panzers and tanks for later use, for the expected future battles in the south of France.
The retreat to Dunkirk was very essential for the BEF, because that was the only escape route where the Germans had not yet overtaken. Also Dunkirk is on the coast so it would be very easy for them to be evacuated back to Britain. This was important because if they didn’t escape to Dunkirk in time, they would be killed by the German armies, as they were trapped, and this was part of the German plan in which they would have suceeded. Also the speed of the German attack had caught out the British. The Halt order was a brilliant chance for the BEF to defend Dunkirk before the Germans got there. The main significance of saving the BEF was so that Britain would be able to continue in the war.
Back home in England the British government was aware that in France the situation was getting worse, they decided that they needed a quick plan to evacuate the BEF. Admiral Ramsay of the Royal Navy was put in charge to complete the job by the 26th of May. Ramsay was ordered to begin the evacuation which had been named ‘Operation Dynamo’.
The plan had been made to rescue as many of the army from the port of Dunkirk by using the Royal Navy ships and other ships. It was predicted that the evacuation would last a couple of days and they would save about 40,000 people. But Luckily the evacuation lasted for 9 whole days, and they were able to rescue at least 338, 226 soldiers from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk. The ships that were used at first for the evacuation were the Barges and the cross Channel Ferries.
The soldiers on the beaches waiting to be evacuated
The soldiers on the beaches were eagerly waiting for their turn to be rescued. All standing in single lines starting to lose hope of being evacuated back home. Bombs from above the sky were dropping one after the other, frightening the soldiers. The BEF were scared and were starting to lose faith in the Navy. They also sat there and wondered where the RAF were and why weren’t they in the sky fighting the Luftwaffe, some brave soldiers tried to fight back at the Luftwaffe to scare them off.
Brave soldiers fighting back at the Stuka bombers
The harbour, beaches and towns were severely bombed. The only way to free the soldiers was to use small boats and bring them to the large ships.
The scene at Dunkirk beach after being bombed
It was getting very difficult to save the soldiers from the beaches alone with little ships, as they couldn’t carry enough soldiers on board to the large ships, and they couldn’t use the harbour because they were severely bombed by the Germans. On the 27th of May they only saved 7,669 soldiers, luckily they discovered the East Mole of the harbour, so now they could take the large ships straight to the East Mole and load the soldiers on board straight away. Sometimes this would get awkward because when the tide came in the ships would raise higher and therefore soldiers would have to climb upon board. However due to the East Mole more soldiers were being saved. By the 28th of May 5,930 soldiers were saved from the beaches and 11,874 from the harbour, so as you can see the harbour helped them a lot to rescue many soldiers. Also the little boats were getting used to picking up soldiers from the beaches.
More and more soldiers were arriving at the beaches hungry and thirsty, but they were supplied with fresh water. The soldiers waiting were exhausted and sometimes they would get very aggressive, so to keep them under control, officers had to use pistols.
Even though soldiers were being saved some boats were sinking because of the bombings and due to the amount of soldiers on one small boat. A destroyer with 650 men on board was sunk on the the 3rd day of evacuation but they did manage to save 13,572 soldiers from the beaches and 33,598 from the harbour.
By day 4 and 5 of the evacuation people back home in Britain had been informed about the evacuation at Dunkirk. After hearing this news many civilian volunteers crossed the channel to Dunkirk in ‘Little Boats’ knowing that they had to rescue soldiers. On day 4 the little boats had saved 29,512 soldiers from the beaches, the amazing thing was that the civilians crossed the channel many times trying to save soldiers waiting on the beaches knowing that they could die of being bombed. These sailors faced many dangers of bombing and sinking while rescuing the soldiers, but still they risked there lives to save the soldiers.
On the 1st of June most of the BEF had been saved and the French soldiers were being evacuated, but unfortunately over 20 ships were sunk this day. By the 3rd of June all British soldiers were saved and the Germans were only 2 miles outside Dunkirk. On the last day 622 soldiers were rescued from the beaches and 25,553 from the harbour. The troops who defended Dunkirk while the evacuation took place retreated to the beaches to be saved, but by 2.23pm the evacuation had ended. Most of the troops defending Dunkirk were French, and some were British. Many of the troops got rescued just in time but some were captured by the Germans or killed by Hitler’s secret army.
Soldier being rescued from Dunkirk
The journey home, for the soldiers that had been rescued was very stressful and tiring. Most of them had not had no food or a wash for many days, and they were very dirty and ‘smelly’. It was also a very crowded journey as there were many soldiers on board, than there should be. During all the journey the soldiers thought that the people at home would be thinking that they were cowards, running away from the battlefield. But they were wrong because when they arrived in England people received them as heroes.
Soldiers arriving back home safely
Many people waited for them impatiently and greeted them with love and affection. Some family members were very disappointed not seeing their relatives back home safely.
The overall result of the evacuation was that the Navy and the civilians put together saved 338,226 from the beaches and harbours of Dunkirk and brought them home safely. Although some solders did die during the evacuation.
