Source E is a photograph of all of the troops stranding on the beaches. All the troops look tired and unable to fight. However when you look at the men lined up they looked well organised and like a real army. This would have looked like a disaster to the British because they have 100s of thousands of men on a beach doing nothing. It is a deliverance because they have so many alive and looks as though they would have enough to fight off any German army. There does not seem to be a lot of officers, therefore there is no one to organise the army. The source is a photograph so we know whoever took it was actually there. A photo cannot be faked like a painting for example.
Source F is another photo, this one shows two British men fire at enemy planes flying above them. This shows the British were fighting but were at a handicap as the Germans had planes and the British only had rifles to try and shoot the planes down. The photograph gives the impression the British were in high spirit to try to take on planes from the ground. However from this we know the Germans had planes on the Dunkirk beaches and planes can kill people much quicker and easier then people can shoot down planes so we know planes on the Dunkirk beaches would have killed a lot of people. This source is unreliable because it only shows two men shooting at the enemy planes, these may have been the only people doing this, for all we know the rest of the army may have been doing nothing.
Source G is an extract of a speech by Anthony Eden who was minister of war in June 1940. He says even though the British Expeditionary Force had lost a lot of men and equipment they have “gained immeasurably in experience of warfare and self-confidence. He also says “the vital weapon of an army is its spirit”, throughout the speech Anthony Eden makes Dunkirk to be a victory to the British even though they had lost more men and equipment than the Germans. According to Eden this victory was thanks to the BEF’s “refusal to accept defeat” that lead to the victory. This source can be unreliable because as Eden may have been trying to make Dunkirk look better than it actually was to the British public.
Source H is a report from a British newspaper. This newspaper makes Dunkirk out to be an all-round victory for the British it does not give any information about how many dead or how much equipment was lost. The report focuses on how many people were brought home. The report is full of honour and pride and describes the British expeditionary force as “unbeatable”. They also say “ships of all sizes dare the German guns”. They do not say the ships dared the guns and some were blown up. This source is a very biased view of what happened on the Dunkirk beaches. The source is unreliable because it is an extract from a British newspaper so it is going to be biased.
The final source, source H is written by A.J.P Taylor, a British historian. He starts of saying that “Operation Dynamo succeeds beyond all expectation”; the fact that he uses the word “succeed” makes the operation sound like a success. He then gives facts about how many were brought back and compares it too how many had died or as left there. He says “almost all of the B.E.F was saved”, this makes the operation sound a success because if you can bring back nearly all of an army then it must have been a success. Then towards the end he gives the other side and tells us what the British expeditionary force had lost which was “virtually all its guns, tanks, and other heavy equipment. Many of the men had abounded their rifles. Six Destroyers had been sunk.” But these things are all objects and nothing compared to the “338,226” life’s that were saved on that day. This source can be unreliable because it was written years after the event. Also the historian who wrote it (A.J.P Taylor) was not actually at the event and only has facts it has read or heard about.
Overall the sources do support the interpretation “Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster”. We have a wide range of sources to compare with and not all of them are biased as some are photographs. The sources all show both sides of the argument for example A.J.P Taylor explains how it was a great success and why but he also explains the loses and how it was a great disaster. There is sufficient evidence in sources D to J because they show both sides and there are lots of sources.
Christopher Esler 10I
