At 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive which instigated the start of Operation Dynamo. This was the order to rescue the British Expeditionary Force from the French port of Dunkirk and the beaches surrounding it. The Admiralty believed that it would only be able to rescue 45,000 men over the course of the following two days. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, however, when Dynamo officially ended, an armada of ships, big and small, naval and civilian achieved what had been considered impossible. In fact, in this period a total of 338,682 men had been disembarked at British ports. Such a figure has exceeded the expectations of most. Little wonder, therefore, that an editorial in The New York Times at the beginning of June declared, So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence. Through 100 objects, from the wreck of a ship through to a dug-up rifle, and individual photographs to large memorials, all of which represent a moving snapshot of the past, the author sets out to tell the story of what came to be known as The Miracle of Dunkirk. The full-colour photographs of each 100 items are accompanied by detailed explanations of the object and the people and events which make them so special or relevant.

This is the Naval Staff History of "Operation Dynamo", originally published internally in 1949. British ships evacuated nearly 100,000 men of the BEF from the beaches, and over 200,000 from harbours. Other nations' vessels carried more than 30,000.

"In May 1940, as France collapsed in the face of the German blitzkrieg, the British army and some French forces fell back on the Channel coast. The advancing Germans pushed them back and then briefly paused, confident that this cornered remnant of the allied forces was trapped. Yet the German command had failed to appreciate just what sea power could do to deny them the full fruits of their apparent victory; at short notice an evacuation was improvised which, it was initially thought, might if all went well last two days and rescue 45,000 men. The heroic rear guard action of the troops ashore against the renewed German advance, the ability of the RAF to provide just enough air cover, the tireless efforts of naval crews and those manning the priceless 'little ships', and the organisational genius of Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay saw Operation Dynamo succeed beyond all realistic expectation: two days became nine, and over 338,000 men were saved. Operational disaster in the Battle of France did not become strategic defeat in the war, and albeit at great cost to the Navy, the British army survived to be rebuilt. Above all, Britain could continue to fight. This volume reproduces the complete text of the Battle Summary written shortly after the war by the Admiralty historical staff, comprising a detailed and authoritative account of these dramatic events. This is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction, newly written for this volume, that explains the context for the operation as well as an overview of further reading on the subject."--Publisher website.

The true story of the World War II evacuation portrayed in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Day of Infamy. In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England. Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,” The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).

The evacuation of Dunkirk has been immortalised in books, prints and films, narrated as a story of an outnumbered, inexperienced RAF defeating the battle-hardened Luftwaffe and protecting the evacuation. This book revives the historiography by analysing the air operations during the evacuation. Raffal draws from German and English sources, many for the first time in the context of Operation DYNAMO, to argue that both sides suffered a defeat over Dunkirk. . This work examines the resources and tactics of both sides during DYNAMO and challenges the traditional view that the Luftwaffe held the advantage. The success that the Luftwaffe achieved during DYNAMO, including halting daylight evacuations on 1 June, is evaluated and the supporting role of RAF Bomber and Coastal Command is explored in detail for the first time. Concluding that the RAF was not responsible for the Luftwaffe's failure to prevent the evacuation, Raffal demonstrates that the reasons lay elsewhere.

During the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, German forces successfully cut off several units of British, French and Canadian troops from supporting forces and supplies. Nearly 350,000 Allied troops were left stranded on the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, in France, amounting to what Winston Churchill called "the whole root, core, and brain of the British Army." Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in what was named Operation Dynamo, a total of 338,226 soldiers were rescued by hastily assembled boats to British destroyers and other large ships or directly back to England. This book fills a gap in Osprey's coverage of World War II (1939-1945), as no Campaign titles have yet covered the Dunkirk evacuation, and, unlike previous treatments of the subject, provides a description and assessment of the operation from an operation perspective. Author Doug Dildy relates the various overlapping and interconnected struggles--land forces vs. land forces, air forces vs. air forces, air forces vs. naval forces, all in a race against time--and their operational impacts on one another in one coherent, coordinated volume.

* * * Special 75th Anniversary Edition * * * Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man tells the story of the rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk. Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades, and Captain Marcus Ervine-Andrews VC who single-handedly held back a German attack on the Dunkirk perimeter thereby allowing the British line to form up behind him. Told to stand and fight to the last man, these brave few battalions fought in whatever manner they could to buy precious time for the evacuation. Outnumbered and outgunned, they launched spectacular and heroic attacks time and again, despite ferocious fighting and the knowledge that for many only capture or death would end their struggle. 'A searing story . . . both meticulous military history and a deeply moving testimony to the extraordinary personal bravery of individual soldiers' Tim Gardam, The Times 'Sebag-Montefiore tells [the story] with gusto, a remarkable attention to detail and an inexhaustible appetite for tracking down the evidence' Richard Ovary, Telegraph Hugh Sebag-Montefiore was a barrister before becoming a journalist and then an author. He wrote the best-selling Enigma: The Battle for the Code. One of his ancestors was evacuated from Dunkirk.