NewsBite

Little Ships the Dynamo of Dunkirk’s evacuation

Seventy-five years ago this week the British Expeditionary forces were engaged in a desperate evacuation from France

Evacuation of Dunkirk France May 1940. BEF men were rescued on a variety of vessels - helping a wounded man ashore at Dover. WWII British Armed Forces history
Evacuation of Dunkirk France May 1940. BEF men were rescued on a variety of vessels - helping a wounded man ashore at Dover. WWII British Armed Forces history

The Nazis had rolled across the Belgian, Dutch and French countryside, sweeping away all Allied opposition. The Allied forces, surprised and battered by the speed and ­effectiveness of the German Blitzkrieg tactics, began to fall back to Dunkirk. It was there, 75 years ago this week, that the Allies pulled off a massive evacuation that has often been called “the miracle of Dunkirk”.

The British had committed about 450,000 British Expeditionary Force (BEF) troops to France since the start of the war in September 1939. Despite their best preparations they had been unable to resist the Nazi onslaught in Europe.

The German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France had begun on May 10 and by May 20 German troops had reached the coast of the English Channel at Noyelles, about 100km south of Calais.

A British counter attack at Arras on May 21 failed to halt the German advance and plans were being made back in England to evacuate the troops by the best available ports on the French coast. The British Admiralty began drawing up plans for an operation codenamed Dynamo.

Troops of the British Expeditionary Force crowd the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, awaiting their evacuation.
Troops of the British Expeditionary Force crowd the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, awaiting their evacuation.

Meanwhile the Allied forces in France, under Lord John Gort, fought desperate actions to reunite their armies, divided in two by the Germans. The surviving troops then retreated to Dunkirk, the last unoccupied port from which a large scale evacuation could take place. Rather than rallying to launch what they knew would be a pointless offensive against the Germans, they awaited rescue. However, many feared they were awaiting destruction or capture.

The Allies were given an unexpected reprieve. On May 24 Adolf Hitler, who had been worried that his tank divisions might not be up to the job of negotiating coastal lands crisscrossed by rivers, canals, dikes and watery tank traps, called a halt to the advance. His troops were ordered back to the “Canal Line” behind Dunkirk, the defensive line where the canals began.

Hitler had been assured by Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, that the annihilation of the Allied forces could be achieved by airpower alone. Hitler also believed this would be less humiliating than forcing the troops to surrender and that a less humiliating defeat might make Britain more willing to ­accept peace terms.

A wounded man is helped ashore at Dover after being ecavuated from Dunkirk.
A wounded man is helped ashore at Dover after being ecavuated from Dunkirk.
Some of the flotilla of small boats of the Dunkirk fleet.
Some of the flotilla of small boats of the Dunkirk fleet.

It was a major miscalculation. The pause in the advance gave the Allies time to shore up defences along the Canal Line, and gave Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay, chief planner of Dynamo, more time to gather a flotilla of ships and boats to evacuate the troops.

He had a cruiser, dozens of ­destroyers and minesweepers, ­gunboats and other naval vessels, supported by hundreds of merchant navy and private vessels ­including tugboats, cross channel ferries, speedboats, fishing boats and pleasure craft. The smaller ­private vessels became known as the “Little Ships” of Dunkirk.

On May 26 the hundreds of thousands of troops on the beach were heartened to see the flotilla arrive. More than 7000 men were taken on that first day but, as word came that Belgium had surrendered and the Germans were on the move again, the pace of the evacuation increased, peaking at more than 60,000 on May 31.

The admiralty had thought they would only manage to rescue about 45,000 men but, by June 4 when the Germans finally broke through the Allied defences to raise the Nazi flag over Dunkirk, nearly 340,000 mostly British, French and some Belgian troops had been evacuated.

British prime minister Winston Churchill, who had come to power on May 10 when Neville Chamberlain resigned over his evident war policy failures, agreed that Dynamo had been a triumph but warned: “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations”.

Still, the British had avoided the humiliation of having the entire force captured.

A soldier keeps watch as the flotilla approaches.
A soldier keeps watch as the flotilla approaches.

FIGHTING TO THE END FOR FRANCE

● Shortly after the outbreak of war the BEF in France numbered about 160,000 troops. By May 1940 it had grown to about 500,000 troops.

● During the Nazi invasion of France over 12,000 were killed, 14,000 wounded and over 40,000 taken prisoner.

● More than 200 British ships were sunk during the evacuation including more than 160 of the “Little Ships”.

● About 340,000 troops were evacuated from Dunkirk from May 26 to June 4, while nearly 30,000 left in the days before Dynamo. About 220,000 Allied troops were evacuated from other French ports.

● After the Dunkirk evacuation Churchill said no troops remained in France. In fact thousands of British troops who had held the defensive line during the evacuation remained behind. Many were captured, some were later evacuated and some managed to find boats to take them back to England.

Originally published as Little Ships the Dynamo of Dunkirk’s evacuation

Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/little-ships-the-dynamo-of-dunkirks-evacuation/news-story/d3fad3dbf0494a27b13651df3c177ba1