Dunkirk evacuation

Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, a fleet of warships, ferries and small civilian boats lifted more than 338,000 Allied soldiers from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk, on the northern coast of France, and carried them to England. Codenamed Operation Dynamo, the evacuation rescued most of the British army and over 100,000 French troops from encirclement during the Battle of France. It saved Britain's ability to keep fighting, and the "miracle of Dunkirk" became one of the most powerful national stories of the Second World War.

On 10 May 1940 Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and France. While the British Expeditionary Force and the best French armies advanced into Belgium, German armoured columns broke through the Ardennes and drove to the English Channel, cutting the Allies in two. By 21 May the British, the remains of the Belgian army and three French armies were penned into a shrinking area along the coast. The British commander, Lord Gort, concluded that evacuation was the only hope and began falling back on Dunkirk, the nearest port with good facilities and long sandy beaches.

On 23 May, with German tanks close to Dunkirk, the army group commander Gerd von Rundstedt ordered his panzers to stop, worried about his flanks, his supplies and the marshy ground, and Adolf Hitler confirmed the order the next day. The task of finishing the trapped armies was left to the Luftwaffe. The advance did not resume until 26 May. The pause gave the Allies time to build a defensive perimeter, and historians and German generals alike have long debated why it was given.

Planning had begun on 20 May under Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay at Dover. Churchill ordered Dynamo to start on the evening of 26 May, and the first hopes were modest: perhaps 45,000 men in two days. Only 7,669 were landed on the first full day, 27 May, as German bombers set the town and docks ablaze.

The breakthrough came when Captain William Tennant began loading troops from the long stone breakwater, the east mole, which had never been meant for ships to moor against. Most of the men rescued left this way. Others waded out from the beaches to be ferried to larger vessels by the "little ships", a flotilla of motor lifeboats, pleasure craft, fishing boats and Thames barges, many crewed by civilians. In all, more than 800 vessels took part.

Belgium surrendered on 28 May, opening a gap that British divisions rushed to fill. Around Lille, French troops held off several German divisions until 31 May, drawing pressure away from the coast. The daily totals climbed: about 47,000 British troops on 29 May, 68,000 men on 31 May, when Gort himself left. French soldiers were evacuated in growing numbers in the final nights, and the operation ended on 4 June, when the remaining French rearguard, perhaps 35,000 to 40,000 men, surrendered.

The rescue came at a heavy price. Six British and three French destroyers were sunk, along with more than 200 other Allied craft, and the RAF lost about 145 aircraft. The army left behind nearly all its tanks, some 2,500 guns and tens of thousands of vehicles. Over the whole campaign the British Expeditionary Force lost about 68,000 men killed, wounded or captured.

On 4 June Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that the rescue was a "miracle of deliverance" but warned that wars are not won by evacuations. German propaganda, by contrast, hailed the fall of Dunkirk as a crushing victory. In France the British decision to evacuate rather than fight southwards caused lasting bitterness, and for many French soldiers carried to England the reprieve lasted only weeks, since France signed an armistice on 22 June.

Our 1938 map shows the borders of western Europe before the German offensive of 1940, and our 1945 map shows them after the war, with Dunkirk once again in France.