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Dunkirk Operation Dynamo

Dunkirk on the French side of the straights of Dover is well known to travelers crossing the English channel. But it's name is also honored in British history for a very different reason. In May 1940 the British and Allied Forces (BEF) face almost total defeat on the French beaches, although defeated the British remained defiant. They were rescued from annihilation against all probabilities and logic to go on to fight another day and win. The fleet that was assembled at Dover must have been the strangest ever assembled by the British Admiralty.

There were: Destroyers, Cargo Boats, Fishing Boats, Cross Channel Ferries, Yachts, Motor Boats, Fire Floats, Tugs, Tugs towing boats, Lifeboats, Pleasure Steamers and Holiday Boats. A call had gone out to every place in Britain that boats were needed at Dover no matter how small. On the 29th May 1940 the strange flotilla of ships began to appear of the French coast, the Allied troops waited patiently and courageously on the beach while being shelled, bombed and machine gunned. They waited on the sand in lines and then up to there waists in water until the boats came to take them off, by May 30/31 some 80,000 troops had been rescued. Both small and large ships kept returning over and over again running the gauntlet of German fire they eventually evacuated 212,000 British officers and men, 113,000 allied troops mainly French and 13,000 wounded.

The allied forces had been snatched from destruction by not only their bravery but that of the many ship and boat crews who would not give up until every man was back on British soil. A memorial was erected at Dunkirk in 1957 to the memory of the 5,000 who fell during the campaign, those covering the last stages of the retreat fell in enemy hands and were taken POW most of which started what was called the 'Great March'.

Great March

The great march which started in France and ended in some cases in Warsaw Poland. 300,000 POW were march because the Germans did not have the POW camps to put them. They were starved any food went to feed the German guards they even ate the horses which they started off with. These men are the unsung heroes of the campaign as very little is written about them.

POW's