O
O.C.
Guest
Every time I hear of Dunkirk my eyes water as I remember those brave dear men that never came back.
Those brave Brave men that gave their lives so others could escape to freedom so they could fight again
Heroes to the end.............
In the days between May 27th and June 3rd 1940 watchers on the Kentish coast saw strange activity in the Channel.
Making their way towards France were destroyers and other units of the Royal Navy, merchant vessels, large and small, plodding colliers and coastal tramps, fishing vessels, their decks still spattered with gleaming scales, paddle steamers that once gave thousands of holiday-makers in paper hats a brief taste of life afloat, a London Fire Brigade float, yachts ranging from the playthings of millionaires to humble week-ender frail dinghies towed by motor launch.
They came back, did most of the 2,000 vessels of this motley armada with their decks crammed with unshaven, weary men of the British Expeditionary Force and French an Belgian armies, 335,000 of them snatched from the closing jaws of the rapidly advancing Nazi armies.
Behind this lay an almost incredible story of heroism and resource.
With the collapse of organized Belgian resistance, Lord Gort had ordered a retreat of the B.E.F. towards Dunkirk. The road to Amiens and the south was blocked by enemy units.
General Weygand, who had assumed command of the French armies, planned, in the words of Mr. Churchill, for the French and British troops in Belgium "To keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to the newly created French army, which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it."
This plan did not materialize. Shattered by tanks and dive-bombers, the Belgian army had virtually ceased to exist as a fighting force, communications between the French and British in Belgium and the main French forces were beyond all possible repair.
The French massed to defend a hastily constructed line running south of the Somme and the Aisne and linking up with the Maginot Line.
For the troops in Belgium only a faint hope of rescue by sea remained.
Never did the time factor assume so much importance.
Four thousand men of the Queen Victoria Rifles, the Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, a Battalion of British tanks, and one thousand Frenchmen pushed their way into Calais in a desperate attempt to win a few hours for their brother's in the north
They fought with cold, reasoned bravery, pitting their lives against the infuriated hammer blows rained upon them by the enemy, while the hands of the clock marked each minute and hour so hardly won. Tanks were turned into fortresses, rifles used against Tommy guns. Only 30 survivors of the gallant 4,000 were eventually taken off by the Royal Navy on May 26th 1940
Meanwhile hell raged on the sand dunes and pier of the port of Dunkirk, so familiar to tourists in the trouble free days of peace. Dog-tired troops continued to pile up. They were battered continually by the German artillery as it crept remorselessly forward, their eardrums ceaselessly assailed by the wail of diving German planes and the whistle and explosion of bombs.
The Royal Air Force, outnumbered but never outfought, flung everything they had into the sky. The pilots, red eyed from lack of sleep, grimy, and in many cases wounded, were in action as many as sixteen hours each day. One squadron of 12 two seater all-metal Defiants accounted for fifty enemy aircraft in three days.
Yet British planes were pitifully few compared with the seemingly inexhaustible resources of the Luftwaffe.
Some of the patiently waiting men on the beaches saw nothing but swarms of Nazi aircraft. "Where is the R.A.F.?" they asked. The answer was that. the R.A.F. had to make the best of scanty reserves. Not only were many enemy machines intercepted and prevented from ever reaching Dunkirk, but the German army was impeded by the constant, daring, low-level attacks made upon gun emplacements, troop columns and rear positions.
As the battle, openly heralded in Berlin as one of extermination, was reaching its climax, the evacuation was being planned by grave-faced men in a small room let into the cliffs of Dover.
At first it seemed merely a question of rescuing a small percentage. Churchill warned an awed House of Commons "to prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings." The German High Command felt confident enough to announce: "The ring about the British, French, and Belgian armies is closed for ever"
They forgot Britain's traditional ally the sea.
From Whitehall the call went out for ships and the men to man them. It was heard in the offices of shipping lines and trawling companies, in clubs and factories, it echoed through the narrow streets of ports and small fishing towns. The men and the ships were forthcoming. Red tape was cut as only democracy can cut it in emergency.
It is now no secret that expert opinion budgeted for at most 30,000 men to be taken off. The difficulties which had to be faced were frankly incredible. One factor, was in favour of the rescuers a sudden calm descended on the Channel, enabling operations to be carried out that would have been impossible in rough weather.
No attempt was made by the Germans to cut off the British forces by sea otherwise than by mines and shore batteries the main route had to be altered three times because of these and by air attack.
Dunkirk is set in a coastline riddled by shoals, sandbanks and narrow passages, hazards, that were increased as most of the rescue work had to be done at night. Moreover, owing to the shallow water, ships larger than destroyers were prevented from reaching the pier.
The scene was unforgettable. Against an inferno of bursting high explosive, Troops waded out to small boats crafts that carried them to the waiting rescue vessels. It was a nightmare for the wounded. Rescue parties of stout hearted and strong-backed sailors carried them on board. The devil chorus of guns, bullets, and bombs grew greater every passing hour. The reverberations could be heard from the English coast, where watchers strained their eyes to catch each ominous flash on the horizon.
Then the news broke to the World...... 335,000 men rescued, British casualties throughout the campaign, "exceeding 30,000 killed, missing and wounded."
At south-eastern ports the whole population turned out to welcome back the men from Dunkirk. The Churches, the Salvation Army, the W.V.S. and many others.........................................
organizations had piles of food and hot tea ready. There were gifts of cigarettes and of chocolate. Crowds cheered, them off from railway stations. Union Jacks fluttered, together with hastily improvised banners bearing words like "Bravo, B.E.F," and "Welcome Home" Weary as they were, many of the men contrived a cheery smile and an exchange of cheerful banter as they saw their welcome.  The free world hailed the evacuation as a victory for freedom. And victory, it was, compared with the disaster which had been so narrowly averted.
Typical was a comment in the New York Times, "So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkerque will be spoken with reverence. For in that harbour, in such a hell as never blazed on earth before, at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that have hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy."
Those brave Brave men that gave their lives so others could escape to freedom so they could fight again
Heroes to the end.............
In the days between May 27th and June 3rd 1940 watchers on the Kentish coast saw strange activity in the Channel.
Making their way towards France were destroyers and other units of the Royal Navy, merchant vessels, large and small, plodding colliers and coastal tramps, fishing vessels, their decks still spattered with gleaming scales, paddle steamers that once gave thousands of holiday-makers in paper hats a brief taste of life afloat, a London Fire Brigade float, yachts ranging from the playthings of millionaires to humble week-ender frail dinghies towed by motor launch.
They came back, did most of the 2,000 vessels of this motley armada with their decks crammed with unshaven, weary men of the British Expeditionary Force and French an Belgian armies, 335,000 of them snatched from the closing jaws of the rapidly advancing Nazi armies.
Behind this lay an almost incredible story of heroism and resource.
With the collapse of organized Belgian resistance, Lord Gort had ordered a retreat of the B.E.F. towards Dunkirk. The road to Amiens and the south was blocked by enemy units.
General Weygand, who had assumed command of the French armies, planned, in the words of Mr. Churchill, for the French and British troops in Belgium "To keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to the newly created French army, which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it."
This plan did not materialize. Shattered by tanks and dive-bombers, the Belgian army had virtually ceased to exist as a fighting force, communications between the French and British in Belgium and the main French forces were beyond all possible repair.
The French massed to defend a hastily constructed line running south of the Somme and the Aisne and linking up with the Maginot Line.
For the troops in Belgium only a faint hope of rescue by sea remained.
Never did the time factor assume so much importance.
Four thousand men of the Queen Victoria Rifles, the Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, a Battalion of British tanks, and one thousand Frenchmen pushed their way into Calais in a desperate attempt to win a few hours for their brother's in the north
They fought with cold, reasoned bravery, pitting their lives against the infuriated hammer blows rained upon them by the enemy, while the hands of the clock marked each minute and hour so hardly won. Tanks were turned into fortresses, rifles used against Tommy guns. Only 30 survivors of the gallant 4,000 were eventually taken off by the Royal Navy on May 26th 1940
Meanwhile hell raged on the sand dunes and pier of the port of Dunkirk, so familiar to tourists in the trouble free days of peace. Dog-tired troops continued to pile up. They were battered continually by the German artillery as it crept remorselessly forward, their eardrums ceaselessly assailed by the wail of diving German planes and the whistle and explosion of bombs.
The Royal Air Force, outnumbered but never outfought, flung everything they had into the sky. The pilots, red eyed from lack of sleep, grimy, and in many cases wounded, were in action as many as sixteen hours each day. One squadron of 12 two seater all-metal Defiants accounted for fifty enemy aircraft in three days.
Yet British planes were pitifully few compared with the seemingly inexhaustible resources of the Luftwaffe.
Some of the patiently waiting men on the beaches saw nothing but swarms of Nazi aircraft. "Where is the R.A.F.?" they asked. The answer was that. the R.A.F. had to make the best of scanty reserves. Not only were many enemy machines intercepted and prevented from ever reaching Dunkirk, but the German army was impeded by the constant, daring, low-level attacks made upon gun emplacements, troop columns and rear positions.
As the battle, openly heralded in Berlin as one of extermination, was reaching its climax, the evacuation was being planned by grave-faced men in a small room let into the cliffs of Dover.
At first it seemed merely a question of rescuing a small percentage. Churchill warned an awed House of Commons "to prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings." The German High Command felt confident enough to announce: "The ring about the British, French, and Belgian armies is closed for ever"
They forgot Britain's traditional ally the sea.
From Whitehall the call went out for ships and the men to man them. It was heard in the offices of shipping lines and trawling companies, in clubs and factories, it echoed through the narrow streets of ports and small fishing towns. The men and the ships were forthcoming. Red tape was cut as only democracy can cut it in emergency.
It is now no secret that expert opinion budgeted for at most 30,000 men to be taken off. The difficulties which had to be faced were frankly incredible. One factor, was in favour of the rescuers a sudden calm descended on the Channel, enabling operations to be carried out that would have been impossible in rough weather.
No attempt was made by the Germans to cut off the British forces by sea otherwise than by mines and shore batteries the main route had to be altered three times because of these and by air attack.
Dunkirk is set in a coastline riddled by shoals, sandbanks and narrow passages, hazards, that were increased as most of the rescue work had to be done at night. Moreover, owing to the shallow water, ships larger than destroyers were prevented from reaching the pier.
The scene was unforgettable. Against an inferno of bursting high explosive, Troops waded out to small boats crafts that carried them to the waiting rescue vessels. It was a nightmare for the wounded. Rescue parties of stout hearted and strong-backed sailors carried them on board. The devil chorus of guns, bullets, and bombs grew greater every passing hour. The reverberations could be heard from the English coast, where watchers strained their eyes to catch each ominous flash on the horizon.
Then the news broke to the World...... 335,000 men rescued, British casualties throughout the campaign, "exceeding 30,000 killed, missing and wounded."
At south-eastern ports the whole population turned out to welcome back the men from Dunkirk. The Churches, the Salvation Army, the W.V.S. and many others.........................................
organizations had piles of food and hot tea ready. There were gifts of cigarettes and of chocolate. Crowds cheered, them off from railway stations. Union Jacks fluttered, together with hastily improvised banners bearing words like "Bravo, B.E.F," and "Welcome Home" Weary as they were, many of the men contrived a cheery smile and an exchange of cheerful banter as they saw their welcome.  The free world hailed the evacuation as a victory for freedom. And victory, it was, compared with the disaster which had been so narrowly averted.
Typical was a comment in the New York Times, "So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkerque will be spoken with reverence. For in that harbour, in such a hell as never blazed on earth before, at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that have hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy."
