Dunkirk, evacuation from

Dunkirk, evacuation from, the rescue of British, French, and other Allied troops from this northern French port during the fighting which led to the fall of France in June 1940. Numbers vary, but the British Admiralty calculated that a total of 338,226 men were taken off between 26 May and 3 June, though all their heavy equipment and transport was lost. Between 850 and 950 ships and small craft (again, official figures vary) were employed in the evacuation. These were co-ordinated by the Vice-Admiral, Dover, Vice-Admiral Ramsay, and his staff working from a room buried in the cliffs which had once housed a dynamo; hence the operation's codename (DYNAMO).

There was much misunderstanding and friction between the French and the British at all levels, for initially they were in Dunkirk for different purposes, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to be evacuated, the French to form a stronghold. The British at first failed to tell their allies that they intended to evacuate their troops and were, indeed, urging them to fight on. During the first days French troops were not allowed to embark—on one occasion at least they were fired on by British troops—and parity of numbers was only reached by the evacuation of 53,000 Frenchmen on the last two nights after all the British troops had been taken off.

Around 28,000 non-essential British personnel had already been evacuated when DYNAMO officially started on 26 May. Discipline among these rear echelon troops was not always good. Those controlling the queues on the beaches often did so with revolvers drawn, and on occasions sailors used their oars as clubs to prevent their small boats being swamped. The gently shelving beaches made evacuation laborious and the major effort was soon switched to the harbour's east mole, from where two-thirds of those rescued were eventually embarked. Later, when the front-line troops arrived and the operation was properly organized the rate of evacuation increased and was more orderly.

The Channel was exceptionally calm. The shortest route that avoided the numerous sandbanks took the rescue ships across to Calais and then up the coast to Dunkirk. This meant the ships were not only shelled but had the Luftwaffe directed against them, so two more northerly routes were also used, though one later had to be abandoned because of attacks by submarines and E-boats.

The Luftwaffe attacked in force whenever the weather (which did not favour it), the RAF, and its strained logistics allowed. It soon reduced the town of Dunkirk to rubble, but the resulting pall of smoke was a useful cover for those embarking. The RAF's resources nearly reached breaking-point. Heavily outnumbered—177 aircraft were lost during the nine days of the evacuation—its pilots made an outstanding contribution to DYNAMO's success. ‘Wars are not won by evacuations,’ Churchill told parliament on 4 June. ‘But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force.’

On 29 May, the day the evacuation was announced to the British public, boats from the Small Vessels Pool—privately owned power craft between 9 m. and 30 m. (30–100 ft.) long—started taking troops from the beaches to the waiting ships. These were some of the famous ‘Little Ships’, but appeals for their numbers to be swelled were not always answered. The Rye fishing fleet refused to go, as did some lifeboat crews, but additional civilian crews with their boats did volunteer once the evacuation was made public. One firm sent its lighters, the London County Council dispatched its hopper barges, and the Port of London nine of its tugs which towed Thames sailing barges behind them.

The other main source of civilian volunteers was retired service personnel. One ex-officer, on his day off, lifted more than 200 troops off the beaches with his motor launch, delivered them to the ships offshore, and then returned to work the next day. On such stories was founded the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ which boosted civilian morale and helped involve the population in the crusade against Hitler.

On 1 June the Luftwaffe wrought havoc among the rescue ships. Three destroyers and a passenger ship were sunk and four other ships were badly damaged. As a result, Ramsay banned daylight sailings though the shrinking perimeter still contained British troops. Some units retired without orders to do so. Officers were told to shoot anyone moving back, and this, according to some eyewitnesses, did occur. Evacuation continued that night and the next, but at dawn on 2 June all British warships were withdrawn and the last remnants of the BEF were evacuated by a civilian ferry. Ships returned that evening to pick up French troops but, through no fault of their own, failed to do so. This caused such a political furore that Ramsay was ordered to send in his ships again the following night and, amid scenes of great confusion and with Germans on the outskirts of the port, 27,000 more Frenchmen were evacuated.

That an effective perimeter could be formed around Dunkirk, and so many men rescued, was due to several factors: the ideal nature of the countryside for defensive purposes; the orders of Army Group ‘A’s C-in-C, General von Rundstedt, for the panzers not to cross the Aa Canal, issued on 24 May and confirmed by Hitler against the wishes of the army's C-in-C, General Brauchitsch; the gallant defensive battle fought by the First French Army at Lille; and the superb efforts of the British and French navies supported by the RAF and ably organized by Ramsay. Of these factors Hitler's confirmation of Runstedt's order was the most controversial and the French Army's stout resistance at Lille the least recognized. Hitler, intent on eliminating the French armies guarding Paris, wanted to conserve his armour and saw no reason to launch it against the remnants of a force he had been assured the Luftwaffe would, in any case, destroy. Shortly afterwards he left the decision to advance in Rundstedt's hands, a decision the latter withheld for another 48 hours. They were hours, it has been argued, that lost Hitler the war.

Bibliography

Harman, N. , Dunkirk: the Necessary Myth (London, 1980).
Turnbull, P. , Dunkirk: Anatomy of Disaster (London, 1978).