Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture

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pages, including appendices covering evacuation statistics, bibliography, British units and ships engaged, eyewitness list, 27 b/w photos, e/paper maps. If you're interested in learning more about the happenings at Dunkirk, listen or read this, I think you will be glad you did. Lord’s in-the-weeds perspective, while vivid, has one serious drawback: it doesn’t give you the overall context in which Dunkirk unfolded.

Lord seemed very honest in his telling of this point in history, quoting interviews from men who had been there to convey the reality of the situation. Other than Churchill and several of the truly significant participants I completely lost track of who was who and lost interest in trying to keep up.But even the roundup of small vessels and weekend sailors, source of Dunkirk's enduring human-interest appeal, is relatively pallid, even hackneyed here. Five to seven days to pull off the amazing, almost impossible logistical feat of getting close to 400,000 combatants off a section of beach, across the English Channel to England and safety from the Luftwaffe, panzers and troops of the Germans hell bent on annihilation of the French and British Expeditionary Force. Despite the challenging circumstances, Operation Dynamo managed to evacuate a significant number of troops. There are no direct links or sources indicated, however, making me initially question the accuracy of many of the descriptions and anecdotes.

German Panzer Divisions poured through the French countryside trapping the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), two French armies, and all Belgium soldiers, nearly one million men pinned against the sea at Flanders. He describes the fighting inland and takes us onto Dunkirk harbour and the beaches as the Royal Navy raced against time to bring the British soldiers home. Born in Bedford in 1965, Sean Longden first became interested in history as a child listening to his grandfather’s tales of Gallipoli. The book has a number of photos, charts and diagrams in, the photos are excellent both in black and white and colour, they mainly are of the vehicles of the less exciting vehicles but they are great none the less and are a key to the book. A gripping adventure in an exciting new series reflecting the authentic, unsung stories of our past!

Seen in this light, Dunkirk remains, above all, a stirring reminder of man's ability to rise to the occasion, to improvise, to overcome obstacles. In Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory, Major General Julian Thompson recreates the action as the British fought hard for three desperate weeks, conducting a successful fighting withdrawal in the face of a formidable foe. The Germans were spreads very thin and were stunned the allies did not attack their flanks as they raced for the beaches. Perhaps Lord’s best chapter, “Operation Dynamo” deals with how the Admiralty bureaucracy organized the diversified types of ships and crafts that would take part in the rescue of the BEF.