Two Thumbs Up for Dunkirk the Motion Picture

Source:  English Heritage.

 

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

― Winston S. Churchill, speech to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; June 4, 1940

***

Thanks to English-American film director, producer, and screenwriter, Christopher Nolan's motion picture "Dunkirk," the defense and courageous evacuation of British soldiers across the North Sea to England during World War II is still being remembered with thunderous applause, 77 years later.

The motion picture premiered in the United States on July 21 in IMAX, 70 mm and 35 mm film.

The most recent box office figures show that Dunkirk grossed $314 million worldwide; the film was additionally greeted with glowing reviews by critics, some calling it Nolan's best film so far and "one of the greatest war films ever made."

Dunkirk is in the north of France, on the shores of the North Sea near the Belgian-French border.

In late May 1940, 250,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were pinned against the English Channel near the port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque), facing annihilation or capture by Nazi forces.

The best that could be achieved, many thought, was the rescue of 20,000 men.

So, began Operation Dynamo, when the British sent across the English Channel all they could muster, including civilian craft, to assist in the evacuation. The operation was severely hampered by the lack of Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters who were not available in sufficient numbers to provide adequate air cover, resulting in the vessels suffering a merciless pounding from the Luftwaffe, the German air force.

From May 26 through June 4, the Royal Navy—assisted by civilian craft and some vessels from other nations—evacuated 364,628 men from Dunkirk; 224,686 of which were members of the BEF.

By the time the evacuation was completed, 68,000 soldiers of BEF were killed, captured, or wounded, including at least 2,000 during Dynamo.

To gain a sharper understanding of this heroic evacuation, I reached out to some writers and scholars to ask if there was something about the Battle of Dunkirk that many might not be aware of.

Here are some responses that whistled back to my in-box.

• "For every seven British soldiers who escaped from Dunkirk, one was left behind as a prisoner of war."

--Sean Longden, author and historian who specializes in British social history during World War II.

• "The key point that most accounts ignore concerns the shift in German emphasis from crushing the British and French forces that had been cut off there in order to make the push south and penetrate the new French front being created and developed there.  This step, started by the German commander von Rundstedt and supported by Hitler needs to be understood, as it rarely is, as a result of German experience in 1914.  They had advanced rapidly then only to be held before a new front and tied down into the trench warfare that characterized the front in the West thereafter.  Rundstedt and Hitler wanted to make sure that this did not happen again.  Their decision indeed prevented such a development while simultaneously making it possible for the British and French soldiers to be evacuated in the famous events associated with the name of Dunkirk."

--Gerhard Weinberg, Professor Emeritus at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an authority on Nazi Germany and the origins and course of World War II.

• "It may be important to understand the role of the French troops in holding the "perimeter" as the rescue/evacuation  happened on the beaches.  The film's opening sequence makes it clear that the French are manning a defensive post so that the British soldiers can get through to the beach. But the film gives an almost wholly "BEF" story."

"Interesting contemporary accounts from the other side of the Channel (from those "waiting" in England) show how little the general public knew about what was happening in France after May 10th, once the Germans started their westward sweep. One can only imagine how anxious the soldiers' families must have been.  George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) was in London at that time; he went to Waterloo Station in London to look for his brother in law among the returning troops, and he comments on the fact that many soldiers' uniforms looked water and salt stained.  He never found his brother in law, an Army Medic, who had been killed on the beach at Dunkirk. "

--Rosemary Haskell, Professor of English at Elon University (North Carolina). Born and raised in England, Haskell's father was rescued at Dunkirk.

• "Of the 56 Allied destroyers that took part in the operation, 9 were sunk and 19 damaged; of the 38 minesweepers, 5 were sunk and 7 damaged; of the 230 trawlers, 23 were sunk and 2 damaged; of the 45 ferries, 9 were sunk and 8 damaged. Of the eight hospital ships - each of which was emblazoned with large Red Cross markings easily visible to the Luftwaffe - one was sunk and five damaged. It was quite untrue – as the BBC was to allege in 2004 – that the British civilians who sailed to Dunkirk to save the B.E.F. did it ‘because they were paid’.

Of course, they were indeed paid for their service, as was the entire BEF for theirs, but there were far easier ways of earning a living during those nine days in May 1940."

--Andrew Roberts, British historian, journalist and broadcaster, from his book, "THE STORM OF WAR"

• "I'm afraid I don't share the current enthusiasm for Dunkirk. It was the result of a military disaster but is too often remembered as some kind of heroic victory. It seems to me to be a classic Brexit film, Britain managing to escape from Europe, so the timing is most unfortunate. The British must come to terms with Dunkirk. The French, understandably, see it very differently - rats leaving a sinking ship.''

--Richard Overy, professor of history at the University of Exeter (South West England), who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich.

• "What most people don't know, I think, is that the Germans did not actually have an edge in armor or aircraft, and that their original plan of battle for the attack in the west would have played into the hands of the allies. The final plan, however, conceived after the original plans were thought to have fallen into Allied hands, made use of concentrated armor and cut off the Allies from their supply bases. As for Dunkirk, the main folly was [Hermann] Goering's promise that he could eliminate the Allies from the air. He made similar promises, this time to supply encircled German forces from the air, in the Demyansk Pocket near Leningrad and of course in Stalingrad."

--Omer Bartov, an Israel born scholar, especially noted for his studies of the German Army in World War II, is a professor of European History and German Studies at Brown University.

• "What most people would not know or appreciate is that just as Dunkirk began was the first time Royal Air Force Spitfires (a British single-seat fighter aircraft) met the Me109 fighters (German World War II fighter aircraft). Until then, Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding (an officer in the Royal Air Force) did not allow Spitfires to operate in France, only Hurricanes.  Both Spits and Hurricanes were designed as defensive fighters, so having to operate over and inland of the French coast was something very new. Training had been built around engaging German bombers coming  to Britain across the North Sea."

"In consequence RAF fighters had only limited time in the combat areas.  Operating in just squadron strengths, they soon found themselves outnumbered, so flying in 'wing' formations was tried. However, with no training in this, three squadrons might fly out to the French coast, but as they could not speak to each other, they quickly split up!  As the squadrons could also be led in the air by their senior pilots, it often happened that the 'wing' could be led by Flying Officer, while the other squadrons had a flight or squadron commander leading their men, so this did not go down well."

"As in the film, the RAF fighters flew in sections of three and it took time to adopt sections of four, such as the German fighters used.  With fours it was easier and safer to break into two pairs for protection, rather than a leader looking for enemy aircraft while the two wingmen kept a close eye on their leader so as to avoid a collision."

--Norman Franks, an English militaria writer, who specializes in aviation topics with a special focus on the pilots and squadrons of World Wars I and II.

 

Dunkirk By the Numbers

• 338,226 troops were evacuated from Dunkirk between May 27 and June 4, 1940.

• 933 ships took part in Operation Dynamo, of which 236 were lost and 61 put out of action.

• 40,000 French troops were taken into captivity when Dunkirk fell.

• The French lost 22 of their 71 field divisions, 6 of their 7 motorized divisions, 2 of their 5 fortress divisions and 8 of 20 armored battalions.

• 126 merchant seamen died during the evacuation.

• 1,000 Dunkirk citizens died during air raids on May 27.

• 50,000 British troops were unable to escape the Continent; of these, 11,000 were killed and the bulk of the remainder were made prisoners of war.

• RAF Fighter Command lost 106 aircraft and 80 pilots, and Bomber Command lost an additional 76 aircraft.

• Other nations lost 17 of 168 vessels taking part.

• BEF equipment abandoned in France included 120,000 vehicles, 600 tanks, 1,000 field guns, 500 antiaircraft guns, 850 antitank guns, 8,000 Bren guns, 90,000 rifles, and 500,000 tons of stores and ammunition.

Source: The Gale Virtual Reference Library, Encyclopedia Britannica; BBC.

--Bill Lucey

August 7, 2017