The second biggest defeat of the British Army in WW2 has been glossed over very neatly by the palace publisher’s history books. The worst was the Fall of Singapore.

On the 4th of June 1940, some 41,000 British soldiers, along with roughly the same number of French, were marched into captivity from within the Dunkirk perimeter.

Around 16,000 French soldiers and 1,000 British soldiers died during the fighting, and the equipment of an entire army was lost.

Entire armies lost

This included huge supplies of ammunition, 880 field guns, 310 guns of large calibre, some 500 anti-aircraft guns, about 850 anti-tank guns, 11,000 machine guns, nearly 700 tanks, 20,000 motorcycles and 45,000 motor cars and lorries.

Other losses included over 6,000 men of the 51st (Highland) Division which were cut off at St Valery-en-Caux on the Channel coast and taken prisoner on June 12th.

Churchill and Eden

‘A colossal military disaster.’  Winston Churchill. ‘This is the end of the British Empire.’  Anthony Eden. Conservative Foreign Secretary. Prime Minister 1955 – 1957.

Debacle

‘Whilst, as in all battles, there were genuine tales of bravery and sacrifice, it was not until twenty-years after the debacle that author and researcher Richard Collier recounted stories that have never been questioned or denied.

Chucking rifles through train windows

He told of anarchic servicemen abandoned by officers, drunken revelry between French, British and Senegalese troops, mutiny; of a Kentish Police Officer who recalled only too well the sight of dispirited men hurling their rifles from the trains carrying them from Dover,’ wrote the historian. The Sands of Dunkirk, London, Collins, 1961.

Fake News

The Sunday Dispatch put the success of the evacuation down to divine intervention following a nationwide service of prayer, following which the notoriously rough Channel ‘became as smooth as a pond’ and ‘a fog descended to shield our troops from devastating attack by the enemy’s air strength.’ – The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley, Andre Deutsch. London. 1975.

Then the media spin

‘In 1962, General Sir Harold E. Franklyn, who had been a divisional commander at Dunkirk, complained that the evacuation had been ‘over-glamorised’. 

Quite ridiculous

He said reports of ‘merciless bombing’ and ‘the hell of Dunkirk’ were quite ridiculous. 

‘I walked along the beach on several occasions and never saw a corpse… there was very little shelling.’  – The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley, Andre Deutsch. London. 1975.

Sir Basil Liddell Hart

‘Never was a great disaster more easily preventable,’ said Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart.  Military historian, who pointed out that the German breakthrough reported as being due to overwhelming superiority was actually achieved with armies inferior in numbers to those opposing them. 

The so-called ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ owes more to Hitler’s conciliatoriness than to the Almighty calming the waters and placing a fog between the retreating British Expeditionary Force and its victorious German pursuers. Let readers know what you think

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