Dawson, Paul L. The Dunkirk Evacuation

The French Perspective. Operation Dynamo and the Untold Story of the French Sacrifice to Save the BEF

On May 10, 1940, Hitler unleashed his *Blitzkrieg* in the West. As German troops advanced, the British Expeditionary Force, the French First Army, and the Belgian Army were pushed into a narrow corridor between Lille and Dunkirk. By May 24, 400,000 soldiers were trapped there; their only chance of survival lay in evacuation. Somehow, the beleaguered Allied troops had to withstand the superior German force long enough to save the majority of the British, French, and Belgian soldiers. Day after day, the Germans attacked the defensive perimeter, yet the defenders held firm. "Even in defeat," a German commander wrote on May 29, "the French fight like lions... the BEF is in a state of complete disintegration. It has simply abandoned all vehicles and equipment and is fleeing to the sea." As troops were evacuated from the beaches and the port of Dunkirk, fewer and fewer men remained to defend the increasingly thin and shrinking perimetera sector held entirely by French troops. When the last ship finally departed Dunkirk on June 4, some 40,000 French soldiers were the only ones left holding the line. Eventually, at 8:00 a.m. on June 4, German troops reached the French naval headquarters in Dunkirk. There, General Barthélemy formally surrendered. "No event in the epic of Dunkirk," noted the French historian who studied the battle, "was more heart-rending" than the sight of Dunkirks brave defenders marching into captivity. Their sacrifice did not go unnoticed by Churchill, either; He acknowledged: These troops thus made a magnificent contribution to the safety of their more fortunate comrades and of the British Expeditionary Force. Drawing on archival sources from France and Belgiummuch of which had not previously been published in EnglishPaul Dawson sheds new light on a little-known aspect of one of the most famous events of the Second World War. Had the French troops not been willing to make this sacrifice, Britains situation in the summer of 1940as Hitlers forces advanced toward the Channel coastcould have become far more precarious.