Dunkirk operation (Operation Dynamo, Dunkirk evacuation) - an operation during the French campaign of World War II to evacuate by sea British, French and Belgian units, blocked after the Battle of Dunkirk by German troops near the city of Dunkirk.
After the breakthrough of the Maginot Line on May 10, 1940 and the surrender of the Netherlands on May 14, the German command developed its success. Parts of the British Expeditionary Force under the command of Lord John Gort, French units and formations that were part of the 16th Corps, and the remnants of the Belgian troops were blocked in the area of the city of Dunkirk.
On May 18, 1940, the commander of the British forces, Lord Gort, for the first time openly proposed that the question of the evacuation of British troops to the British Isles be considered.
After the German tank formations broke through to Abbeville on May 20, 1940, the troops of the 1st Allied Army Group (a total of 10 British, 18 French and 12 Belgian divisions) were cut off and pushed to the sea in the area of Gravelines, Arras, Bruges ... From the south and southwest, the troops of the German Army Group "A" acted against them under the command of Colonel-General Gerd von Rundstedt (Panzer Group E. Kleist, Panzer Group G. Gotha and the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht), from the east and southeast - the troops of the German Army Group "B" under the command of Colonel-General V. Leeb (parts of the 18th and 6th armies).
Churchill's office and the British Admiralty decided to evacuate parts of the British Expeditionary Force to the British Isles.
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On 20 May, the British government began collecting ships and vessels that were capable of taking part in the evacuation. For the evacuation, the Allied command mobilized all available ships of the navy and merchant fleet: 693 British and about 250 French. Rear Admiral Bertram Ramsay planned and directed the operation.
On May 21, 1940, the Wehrmacht's 19th corps received an order to go on the offensive in order to seize the ports on the English Channel. On the same day, in the afternoon, British forces launched a counterattack of German units in the area south of Arras, a limited force (one infantry regiment and two tank battalions) participated in the counterattack. Units of the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht, with the support of ground attack aircraft, eliminated the threat, but German troops were driven back several kilometers to the south.
On the night of May 22, 1940, two French divisions went over to a counterattack, but due to the lack of coordination between the allies, by this time the British command had already stopped the advance and ordered its troops to withdraw. The counterattack, dubbed the Arras Crisis, caused a stir among the German command. In 1945, Rundstedt wrote: “The critical moment of the offensive occurred just as my troops reached the English Channel. This was a counterattack by British forces on 21 May south of Arras. For a short time, we feared that our panzer divisions would be cut off before the infantry divisions could come to the rescue. None of the French counterattacks posed as serious a threat as this. "
On May 22, 1940, units of Kleist's Panzer Group occupied Boulogne. On the same day, the British Naval Ministry requisitioned 40 Dutch schooners in British ports with the aim of using them to evacuate troops from the continent.
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As the commander of the 19th Army Corps, General G. Guderian, noted in his memoirs, during this day, in the battles near Devres, Samet and south of Boulogne, the corps soldiers encountered not only Anglo-French troops, but also units of the Belgian and Dutch troops.
On the night of 23-24 May 1940, the 9th company of the "Der Führer" regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, which had advanced to the Bayol region to guard the crossings, was attacked by enemy forces up to an infantry battalion supported by tanks that broke through the company's defensive positions ... Simultaneously, French tanks attacked the positions of the 7th company of the regiment. To the aid of the 9th company, the reserves of the 9th company, as well as one machine-gun platoon from the 12th company and one anti-tank platoon from the 14th company of the Der Führer regiment were thrown into the battle at Saint-Hilaire.
On May 24, Hitler ordered the German tank divisions advancing along the coast of the English Channel to stop the offensive at the Aa channel line and withdraw the units that had advanced on Hazbruck. Further advancement was allowed only to units performing reconnaissance and security missions. As a result, the German units stopped at the Bethune, Saint-Omer, Gravelin line. Hitler ordered "not to approach Dunkirk closer than 10 km" and not to use tanks against the blocked grouping, so Rundstedt, trying to prevent the evacuation, but not violate the order of the Fuehrer, ordered the German troops to use medium-caliber artillery to fire at enemy positions. On the same day, at 11:42 a.m., an unencrypted message, in which the German military command ordered the troops to stop on the Dunkirk - Hazbruck - Merville line, was intercepted by the British radio interception service.
Nevertheless, on May 24, on the orders of the commander of the SS division "Adolf Hitler", the division's soldiers crossed the Aa Canal and took the Monwattan hill on the opposite bank, which ensured dominance over the flat terrain (the ruins of a medieval castle at the top made it possible to turn it into a stronghold).
On the evening of 26 May, the British Expeditionary Force received an evacuation order. Immediately before the start of the operation, the British government appealed to all owners of private ships, boats and other vessels to take part in the evacuation of troops.
On May 27-28, the "Der Führer" regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division fought with units of British troops in the area of the forest of Niep for the crossing of the Lis River. The fighting was fierce and reached hand-to-hand fighting, the forest of Niep was occupied by the Germans only in the evening of May 28.
On May 28, 1940, King Leopold III of Belgium signed the act of Belgium's surrender. The surrender of the Belgian troops freed the German military units and complicated the position of the Anglo-French troops blockaded in the Dunkirk area.
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The evacuation from the Dunkirk area took place in a dispersed manner, under continuous artillery fire and constant enemy bombardment, which began especially massive raids after the British fighters were retreating to refuel the coastline, as well as when the encirclement ring was narrowed and from small arms, primarily from machine guns. The loading of troops on the large ships of the British navy and merchant navy took place in the port of Dunkirk, but the troops on the coast created several makeshift piers from the convoys of vehicles driven into the water, to which small ships of the British auxiliary fleet could moor. In addition, under the cover of the ships of the British Navy, small ships and boats approached the coast, and soldiers reached them in boats, lifeboats and self-made watercraft.
The hostilities were conducted in highly rugged terrain among numerous canals, British troops held the eastern part of the front, French western ones, as the troops were evacuated, the advanced units came out of contact with the enemy and went ashore for loading, at the next line of enemy defense they met new units of the rearguard ... The Germans constantly attacked, but suffered heavy losses and advanced extremely slowly. Sometimes the allied forces counterattacked and pushed them back to their original positions.
The aircraft of the German air force failed to achieve air superiority and disrupt the evacuation of the Allied forces for a number of reasons, including:
- overestimation by the Luftwaffe command of the forces and capabilities of German aviation (General A. Kesselring noted that when setting the task, Goering did not take into account the degree of fatigue and fatigue of the Luftwaffe pilots who had participated in hostilities for almost three weeks), as well as insufficient consideration of local features of the theater of operations :
- so, during the bombardment of the coast, the damaging effect of German aerial bombs was reduced as a result of the low density of sea sand;
- active opposition from enemy fighter aircraft during the operation (only British air force aircraft performed 2,739 sorties over the evacuation zone);
- in particular, the active actions of the British Supermarine Spitfire fighters, which made it difficult for the Luftwaffe to fulfill the tasks assigned to them
- the bad weather that persisted for several days, which did not impede the evacuation, but impeded the actions of the aviation.
A number of servicemen died in the course of transportation.
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337,131 people arrived in the British Isles from France. The Dunkirk operation made it possible to preserve the regular British army, which at the same time received invaluable combat experience, although the army lost almost all of its heavy weapons. The entire personnel was retained, which later became the basis of the Allied troops. Before the evacuation began, the British command hoped that it would be able to save only about 45 thousand people, but during the stubborn battles, the British armed forces demonstrated high fighting spirit and professionalism. The English people showed their determination to continue the struggle and readiness for self-sacrifice, about half of the troops were rescued by civilians, fishermen, ferrymen, yacht owners, boats and others who responded to the call of the British authorities. Along with the British, many French, Belgians and other allies also acted, those who did not succumb to panic and were not infected with defeatist sentiments. Many of them later continued to fight as part of the British Armed Forces and in military formations such as the "Free France", which decided, despite the surrender of their governments, to continue the fight.
During the evacuation of the personnel of the British, French and Belgian troops in the Dunkirk area, almost all heavy weapons, equipment and equipment were abandoned. In total, 2472 artillery pieces, almost 65 thousand vehicles, 20 thousand motorcycles, 68 thousand tons of ammunition, 147 thousand tons of fuel and 377 thousand tons of equipment and military equipment, 8 thousand machine guns and about 90 thousand . rifles, including all heavy weapons and transport of 9 British divisions. The losses of the Royal Air Force covering the evacuation amounted to 106 aircraft. During the operation and during transportation to England, about 2 thousand soldiers and sailors of the Allies died and went missing.
In total, during the battles with German troops during the operation "Dynamo" and after its end in the Dunkirk area, 50 thousand soldiers of the French army were captured. Of this number, about 15 thousand out of 40 thousand covering the last stage of the evacuation, the French army was captured by the Germans, being in the rearguard of the evacuated Allied forces, despite the fact that the British navy did not stop the evacuation until the last opportunity and managed to take out more than 26 thousand Frenchmen (later, German propaganda used this episode to incite anti-British sentiment among the French).
Also, during the operation, more than a quarter of the ships and vessels participating in the evacuation were lost (224 British and about 60 French ships), including 6 destroyers of the British Navy and 3 French Navy, a significant number of ships (including 19 or 23 ships of the British Navy) were damaged.
The Germans lost 140 aircraft in aerial combat and from anti-aircraft artillery fire. Among the people, the losses amounted to 8.2 thousand people.
Military historians are still arguing about the true reasons for stopping the German offensive by order of Hitler to this day. Suggestions have been made to explain this decision:
- it is noted that Hitler sought to avoid additional losses in tank units, which were to re-engage in battles against French troops in the second phase of the French campaign. At the same time, the commander of the 19th Army Corps, General G. Guderian (who was directly involved in the operation to encircle the Anglo-French troops in the Dunkirk area) believed that Hitler's "nervousness" on this issue was unreasonable, and that German troops could destroy the blocked group
- Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces F. Halder did not recommend attacking the bridgehead, warning of the danger of a possible counterattack by French troops from the Paris area.
- reassessment of the capabilities of the Air Force. Luftwaffe chief Goering promised his Fuehrer that he could easily prevent the evacuation with the help of the Air Force, and the tanks must turn south and complete the campaign against France.
- the assumption that Hitler wanted to conclude peace with Britain on favorable terms and deliberately prevented the elimination of troops, which, in his opinion, facilitated this task.
- There is also a version that Hitler or representatives of the German military command of the Wehrmacht feared an increase in losses in the event of an attack on enemy positions, combined with the possibility of French troops going on the offensive in other sectors of the front.
In any case, the order to liquidate the encircled group was given late, the allied forces managed to strengthen their positions and carry out the evacuation, the Luftwaffe forces could not cope with the task of preventing them, and the British perked up thanks to the "miracle of Dunkirk" and only strengthened their resolve to continue the war.
Image copyright Warner bros Image caption The film "Dunkirk" tells the story of the evacuation of the British and French military in 1940
On July 21, the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's film "Dunkirk", which tells the story of the evacuation of Allied troops from the coast of France in 1940, took place. The BBC tells how several hundred thousand soldiers were trapped on a French beach.
Nolan's film has already received rave reviews from critics. On review site metacritic.com, Dunkirk has been ranked in the top 5 Oscar-nominated films in 21 years, and in the top 10 war films of all time.
An unexpected success was the acting debut of Harry Styles, a member of the pop group One Direction.
What happened in Dunkirk?
Winston Churchill, in his famous speech "We Will Fight on the Beaches" in 1940, called the events in Dunkirk "a miraculous deliverance." Churchill's accolades were aimed at a rescue operation in which 338,226 French and British soldiers were evacuated from the beach and harbor of Dunkirk, France.
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Initially, it was assumed that the German troops occupying France would reach the coast where the military was stationed within two days.
In this case, it would be possible to ensure the safety of only 43 thousand soldiers. Nevertheless, thanks to the confusion of the Germans and the courageous actions of the members of the Coalition, the British and military soldiers were saved.
Why did the military end up on the beach?
In response to the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain sent troops to defend France. After the Germans advanced into Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940, the Allies made an almost fatal mistake.
Dunkirk in numbers
Rescued:
198,229 British military
139,997 French military
636 Allied ships
Captured by:
262 enemy aircraft
Sources: Peter Doyle "World War II in Numbers", RAF
The French-German border was almost entirely fortified by the so-called "Maginot Line", but its northern section was protected only by the Ardennes forest. The Allies assumed that it was too thick and did not require serious protection, but the German troops managed to pave a road through the thicket.
As a result, the Germans actually ended up in the rear of the Allies, forcing them to move into Belgium, where they faced even more enemy soldiers. The only option was to enter the coastal city of Dunkirk, from where the military could be evacuated to England.
Rescue operation
The moment when most of the military of the united armies of Britain and France were surrounded by the Germans, could be a turning point in the entire war. However, for still unclear reasons, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to stop.
Allies got extra time. For the evacuation of the military, sea ships, passenger ferries, fishing vessels, private yachts and boats were attracted. The rescue operation was joined by a handful of civilians who went to aid in the English Channel separating Britain and France.
As a result, in nine days the formed fleet, which was covered by British aircraft from the air, was able to take out most of the military.
Dunkirk myth
The main myth associated with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in late May - early June 1940 is the assertion that Hitler deliberately allowed the British to leave by stopping the tank divisions pursuing them. Thus, he hoped that England, without experiencing the humiliation in the form of the capture of her expeditionary force, would more willingly agree to the conclusion of peace with Germany, which would allow throwing all German forces against the Soviet Union. At the same time, for some reason, the fact is overlooked that, having lost the expeditionary corps, England would become much more accommodating in accepting German peace proposals.
In fact, Hitler's famous "stop order" was motivated by purely military considerations. Moreover, he did not in any way affect the course of the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk.
On May 10, 1940, the German offensive began in France, and on May 15, Holland surrendered, a number of strategic points of which were captured by enemy airborne assault forces. Brussels fell the next day. On May 20, the panzer group of General Ewald von Kleist reached the English Channel, and on May 28 the Belgian army surrendered. The main forces of the French army were surrounded in Belgium and northern France and by the end of May ceased resistance. The British Expeditionary Army under the command of Lord Gort, who realized the hopelessness of continuing the struggle on the continent, began to withdraw to the port of Dunkirk for subsequent evacuation to the British Isles. By that time, the British had already discovered the secret of the German encryption machines and were reading the negotiations of the German headquarters in the West. This helped the British command to make the right decision.
On May 21, Franklin's British Task Force of the 5th and 50th Divisions with 74 tanks from the 1st Army Tank Brigade, supported by units of the 3rd French Mech Division, launched a counterattack, which hit the rear of the 7th Panzer Division and the SS Motorized Division. "Death's Head" in the Arras area. On the morning of May 23, the 1st French Army also launched a counterstrike in the direction of Arras, which threatened Kleist's tank group with encirclement. Kleist reported to Halder on the evening of the 23rd that he had already lost half of his tanks and would not be able to move towards Dunkirk until the crisis at Arras was eliminated. In addition, he said that it was the first time that tanks had been hit by sensitive attacks. After that, on the evening of May 23, the commander of Army Group A, General Gerd von Rundstedt, gave the order on May 24 to suspend the advance of the Panzer groups of Hoth and Kleist to pull up forces and clarify the situation. On the morning of May 24, Hitler visited Rundstedt's headquarters. The commander of the army group persuaded the Fuehrer to suspend the advance of the panzer divisions in order to replenish and regroup them. It was necessary to wait for the lagging infantry divisions, which were supposed to fight in the cities, for which tanks were of little use. At the same time, the "stop order" (directive No. 13) confirmed that "the immediate goal of the operations is the destruction of the Franco-Anglo-Belgian troops surrounded in Artois and Flanders, by means of a concentric offensive of our northern wing, as well as the rapid occupation and protection of the sea coast. At the same time, the task of aviation is to break all resistance of the encircled enemy units, to prevent the evacuation of British troops across the strait and to secure the southern flank of Army Group A ”...
The counterattack of two British tank battalions at Arras so frightened the commander of Army Group South, Rundstedt, that he got Hitler to receive an order on 24 May to stop the advance of German tanks near the English Channel along the Lance-Gravelines line, 16 km from Dunkirk. The "stop order" was explained by the fact that the German command was not sure that the British expeditionary force would be immediately evacuated to the British Isles, and would not try, together with the French troops, to hold the Dunkirk bridgehead for a more or less long time, as, by the way, , the French command insisted. Should the second scenario prove to be true, the armored divisions would have to regroup to strike at the weaker and much more British demoralized French forces. A counterattack by fresh British armored units led Rundstedt to believe that a decision had been made to hold the Dunkirk bridgehead. Therefore, a "stop order" was given in order to understand the intentions of the enemy and, depending on them, use Kleist's tank divisions, which suffered significant losses in battles with British armored units. Even if German tanks had entered Dunkirk, without the support of the infantry, they would have been destroyed by the bulk of the British expeditionary forces approaching the city. The next two days showed that the resistance of the French troops retreating to the coast was significantly weakened, the ports of Boulogne and Calais were taken. It became clear that the enemy was not capable of a large-scale counterattack. At the same time, it turned out that the infantry units were advancing too slowly. Therefore, there was a threat that the Allies would create bridgeheads on the coast for long-term resistance. On May 26, the headquarters of Army Group B, General Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb, expressed concern that "three large centers of resistance would emerge - near Bruges, in the Lille region, Ypres and near Dunkirk, the elimination of which will require a lot of time and effort." To prevent this, the offensive of the German tank groups resumed. Thus, the German command was more afraid not of evacuation, but of prolonged resistance of the allied forces on the coast of the English Channel.
Two days later, the offensive resumed, but the British managed to hold the approaches to Dunkirk. On May 28 and 29, the Allied forces withdrew to a small bridgehead at Dunkirk. By June 4, 215,000 British soldiers, 114,000 French and 9,000 Belgian soldiers had been evacuated. In total, 861 ships participated in the evacuation, including about 300 French, Polish, Dutch, Norwegian. About 240 ships were sunk, including 6 destroyers. 40 thousand Frenchmen were taken prisoner. The Luftwaffe, contrary to Goering's promise, could not prevent the evacuation. German attacks were repelled by British fighters, which shot down 130 German aircraft and lost 106 of their own. The British were also helped by cloudy and rainy weather, which prevented the Luftwaffe from bombing Dunkirk. The losses of the British corps amounted to 68 thousand killed, wounded and prisoners. He lost all artillery (2.5 thousand guns), more than 300 tanks and 64 thousand vehicles, but managed to evacuate the tanks.
The fact that the "stop order" did not actually affect the outcome of the evacuation of British troops is proved by the following facts. After the Germans stopped, Gort also did not immediately receive the order to retreat. In London it was decided whether there was still a chance of continuing the struggle, whether the French would withstand, whether it was worth leaving the English army in France. Only in the evening of May 26, on the eve of the resumption of the German offensive, Gort was finally ordered to begin a retreat to Dunkirk with a view to subsequent evacuation. At the same time, the final consent to the evacuation was transferred to him only on May 27 at one o'clock in the afternoon. Here is what the well-known British theorist John Fuller, close to the Department of Defense, reports on this matter: “The rapid advance from the south, together with the relentless pressure from the east, forced the entire left wing of the allied armies to gather in an equilateral triangle, the base of which was the line of Gravelines, Terneuzen, and the summit was slightly north of Cambrai. The northern half of the eastern side of the triangle was held by the Belgian army, which was heavily bombarded on 24 May. On May 25, she began to succumb. The next day, when all hope disappeared that the French armies, located south of the Somme, would advance north, Lord Gort was ordered to retreat to the coast to save everything that could still be saved from his army. " There can be no doubt that if the German panzer groups had continued on the 24th non-stop movement towards Dunkirk, the British retreat would have begun, respectively, two days earlier, and not on the morning of May 27, simultaneously with the resumption of the German offensive. It was not a matter of delays or mistakes, but of completely objective things. The British army, unlike the French or Belgian, did not lose its presence of mind. The forces at Gort's disposal, including 3 tank brigades (the last, the 3rd, landed in France on May 25, only to cover the evacuation), armed with heavy tanks with strong armor, were quite enough to hold the small Dunker a bridgehead, where the front line was small, and the density of battle formations was at its maximum, during the 10 days required to prepare and carry out the evacuation. The British were helped by the calm, clear weather. There was no disturbance at sea, and all vessels, including small-tonnage schooners, yachts and boats, were used for evacuation. In addition, British aviation did not cede air supremacy over the English Channel to the Luftwaffe. The Hurricanes and Spitfires were not inferior to the Messerschmitts, and the British pilots fought no worse than the aces of Hermann Goering. The Germans were unable to prevent the evacuation from Dunkirk primarily due to the weakness of their surface and submarine fleet, which did not have enough strength to attack the convoys with evacuated British troops.
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After the Maginot Line was broken on May 10, 1940, and Holland surrendered on May 14, the British Expeditionary Force, French units and formations and the remnants of the Belgian troops were surrounded in the area of the city of Dunkirk. Moreover, as Montgomery wrote after the war, the battle in Belgium and France was lost even before it began. That is, the very disposition of the troops, the actions of the French command, the disagreements between the British and the French - all this led to the fact that the troops in this situation were already doomed to defeat. Although the Montgomery division performed very well.
For the Dunkirk evacuation, they collected everything that could be
On May 20, the British government began to collect ships and vessels that were able to take part in the evacuation of the Allied forces to the British Isles. For this, all ships of the military and merchant fleets, harbor tugs, even river trams were mobilized. In total, about seven hundred vessels were involved. Rear Admiral Bertram Ramsay planned and directed the operation. Lord Gort, the commander of the British forces, also made a great contribution to the evacuation.
338 thousand people were transported to the British Isles in a week
During the week, from May 26 to June 4, 338 thousand people were transported by sea, across the English Channel, to the British Isles. Strikingly, the losses during Operation Dynamo (the code name for the Dunkirk evacuation) were small. Why? First, because warships were able to cover civilian ships. The English pilots acted very bravely. The Germans also fought. Directly in the battles around the bridgehead itself, about 100 aircraft were lost (on both sides), about 1200 people were killed. But the weapons were left: 2500 guns, 60 thousand vehicles, a huge amount of ammunition, fuel, property was thrown. It is impossible not to say about the French, who were captured, actually covering the whole operation - 50 thousand people.
British soldiers boarding a British destroyer off the coast of Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo, 1940
The evacuation was carried out in several stages. Improvised berths were built along the coast. At first, people were transported on small ships that could come close to the coast, then they were loaded onto large ships. Each unit had its own order of withdrawal: one covered the defense, the other went to the rear. That is, they were constantly changing, following each other. This was done in order to "chop off" the Germans' ability to break through to the beaches where the evacuation was carried out. The defense was held to the last. The Germans could not gnaw through it. They did not risk it.
In Dunkirk, the British had full power
There is a version that Hitler gave the order to stop, "not to approach Dunkirk closer than 10 kilometers" and not to use tanks against the blocked Anglo-French grouping. In fact, the German units stopped even without his order. The British "helped" them in this. First, the German troops entered the area of operation of the British naval artillery, and the powerful point fire of the naval guns played a very important role here. Second, the battle for France was far from over. France did not surrender, the war continued. And it was not clear how events would unfold in the future, is it worth risking tank units and German infantry in battles for this bridgehead? The German generals did not consider it necessary. The main thing for them was that the British were leaving.
By the way, if we talk about politics, then there is another very interesting version, according to which the Germans hoped that when the evacuated British units returned home in panic and brought with them the spirit of defeat, Britain would surrender and refuse to continue the war. Nothing of the sort happened.
Churchill proposes to unite England and France into one state
It is worth noting that in addition to the British and French, the Belgians and the Dutch were involved in the Dunkirk operation (albeit in small numbers). And if the Belgian army, obeying the order of the king, surrendered, then the Dutch in a few days of fierce struggle were able to inflict heavy losses on the Germans. For example, over Holland, German transport aircraft lost 300 aircraft. In general, May 8, 1940 is the day of the most severe losses of German aviation in the entire world war.
Since we are talking about aviation, one cannot fail to mention the British pilots who, at Dunkirk, for the first time "showed their teeth to the Germans." They acted just brilliantly, covering the ships that were taking people away from the air.
French army soldiers evacuated to Britain during Operation Dynamo. Dover, 1940
Well, a few words about the figure of Winston Churchill, who, of course, was key during this period. It is known that the British Prime Minister was a supporter of the war until victory in any case. After all, it was he who came up with the idea to unite England and France into one state, which will oppose Hitler. However, the French did not dare to take this step.
The German offensive in France was so swift and powerful that it was a completely demoralizing surprise for the opposing side. The British Expeditionary Force was not ready for a new type of war, therefore, despite its substantial numbers and decent technical equipment, it suffered defeat after defeat. This could ultimately lead to a catastrophe - as the Germans advanced towards the English Channel, panic among the corps personnel grew, and at the end of May 1940 the dam collapsed. The British began to move towards the saving strait, beyond which their native shores were waiting. The retreat was disorderly, with roads jammed with refugees and fleeing troops, vehicles abandoned by the side of the road. The officers who had abandoned their units fled first, despite a direct order to remain at the post until the last. It became clear that what could not be stopped would have to be led - and an order was given to organize the evacuation of British troops and their allies from the combat zone. At first, it was only about the removal of support personnel, but it quickly became clear that everyone would have to evacuate.
Retreat to the coast, May 1940
Preparations for the evacuation began on 20 May. Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsey was appointed commander (in some sources the surname is transcribed as Ramsey). The evacuation itself was called "Operation Dynamo" in honor of the generator (dynamo) of Dover Castle - it was in the generator room that Ramsey drew up an operation plan and discussed it with Churchill, from where he commanded her.
Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsey at his command post in Dover
One of the mysteries of the Battle of Dunkirk remains the order given by Hitler - the order to stop the offensive, which gave the British time to conduct Operation Dynamo. Before reaching literally a few kilometers, the German ground troops stopped and took up defenses, pressing the remnants of the British troops (together with a number of French ones) to the coast near the city of Dunkirk. A huge mass of soldiers were trapped in the city and on the sandy beaches adjacent to it. Some researchers even hypothesize that the Fuhrer deliberately suspended the punishing sword so as not to turn the British against himself too much - they say, civilized white people are not an inferior race. However, the likelihood of the validity of such an interpretation is extremely small. At least, no one was going to feel sorry for the British, since the surrounded people were continuously bombed throughout the evacuation. On the very first day, the Dunkirk port was destroyed by a massive raid. A significant part of the bombs fell on the city - the number of civilian casualties, according to some sources, reached a thousand people, about a third of the total population remaining in the city at that time. The city's water supply was damaged by bombs, making it impossible to extinguish fires, and Dunkirk burned out almost completely. The Germans who had gathered on the beaches were bombed and shot from onboard machine guns. British aviation provided the maximum possible assistance - on the first day alone, the "cavalry" that had arrived from the opposite bank shot down 38 German aircraft. In total, during the evacuation, the British were able to destroy 145 enemy aircraft at the cost of losing 156 of their own, 35 more German aircraft were destroyed by anti-aircraft artillery from ships.
British sailors watch fires on the French coast
The most likely reason for stopping the German troops is currently considered a desire to avoid unnecessary losses. The cornered French and British were clearly going to desperately resist to the last, but Goering promised to deal with the encirclements exclusively with the help of air strikes, and this prospect seemed tempting to the Fuhrer. Subsequently, Guderian and Manstein considered the order to stop the offensive as one of Hitler's most critical mistakes, and Rundstedt called it "one of the key moments of the war."
Soldiers waiting for evacuation
Be that as it may, the respite was life-saving for the British. The evacuation began on May 27 - for her, the British light cruiser Calcutta, eight destroyers and twenty-six transport ships were brought up to the coast near Dunkirk. The problem was that the coast in that place is shallow and sandy, so the shallows extend for long distances under water, making it impossible for large ships to approach directly to the surf line. To transport people from the beaches to ships, the Admiralty literally combed all the surrounding British ports, mobilizing all the small ships they could reach. It was the most colorful and diverse fleet imaginable - it included pleasure boats, and harbor tugs, and fishing boats, and even personal sailing yachts. However, as it quickly became clear, the shallows did not allow even these small ships to approach the coast.
Civilian boats and yachts move forward to assist in evacuation
The soldiers had to wade for several hundred meters from the surf line, sometimes they reached the boat's storm ladder up to their necks in the water. To deal with such difficulties, local officers resorted to various tricks. For example, at low tide, cars were driven to the exposed bottom, lining them up in a chain directed to the sea, and hastily put together wooden bridges on their roofs. In the port of Dunkirk, the berths were destroyed by German bombers, but two concrete breakwaters survived, each of which protruded into the sea for more than a kilometer - and they began to be used for loading.
Loading on a boat
From day to day, the number of ships and vessels involved in the operation grew - a total of 693 British boats took part in the Dynamo. This number included the previously mentioned cruiser "Kolkata", 39 destroyers, 36 minesweepers, 13 torpedo boats and hunters, 9 gunboats. There were 311 small vessels (excluding boats and boats belonging to large ships and vessels). In addition, ships of other allies (mostly French) also provided assistance in the evacuation - there were 168 of them, including 49 combat ones. For the most part, the soldiers refused to occupy the interior spaces on the ships for fear of not having time to get out if the ship begins to sink, so they occupied the decks and superstructures, stuffing, in the most literal sense, like herring into a barrel. Where the soldiers got to the ships in boats, they often abandoned the boat, having reached the goal. No one wanted to return to the shore even for a short while - so those who remained on the beach had to wait for the empty boat to be washed ashore by the wind. Due to the loading difficulties described above, almost all heavy equipment was left on the shore. In fact, the soldiers did not take anything with them except clothes - many even threw down weapons and backpacks with personal belongings. In total, the British left 455 tanks, more than 80 thousand cars, motorcycles and other equipment, two and a half thousand guns, 68 thousand tons of ammunition, 147 thousand tons of fuel and 377 thousand tons of other supplies.
British soldiers fire on German planes bombing the beach
The loaded ships leaving Dunkirk traveled to the British Isles on three routes designated "X", "Y" and "Z". The shortest route was the "Z" route (only 72 km), the ships covered it in an average of two hours, but it ran along the French coast, and the ships following them were subjected to German artillery fire from land for a significant part of the route. Route "X" was the safest, although it was much longer (105 km), but it ran in close proximity to a number of shoals and minefields, because of which it could not be used at night. Route "Y" was the longest (161 km, four hours' journey) - it passed away from mines and guns, but the ships following them were constantly attacked by the German fleet and aviation. In total, more than a quarter of the ships participating in the evacuation were lost - 243 out of 861.
The French destroyer Borrasque sinks after being blown up by a mine. Evacuated soldiers visible on deck
It was originally assumed that the lull in the German offensive would last no more than forty-eight hours. During this time, it was planned to save 45 thousand people. In fact, the plan was thwarted (on the first day a little more than seven and a half thousand people were taken out, on the second - a little less than eighteen thousand, that is, a total of about 25 thousand instead of the planned forty-five), but the Germans continued to stand still, attacking the allies only from the air , and the evacuation gradually gained momentum - on May 29, more than 47 thousand people were evacuated in one day, over the next two days more than 120 thousand people were evacuated.
British soldiers are loaded onto the ship
Evacuation
On May 31, the Germans pressed, and the "Dunkirk pocket" shrank significantly. On June 1, 64 thousand people were evacuated. The British covering forces defending Dunkirk departed on 2 June. Only the French remained on the continent - they were also taken out, but not in the first place. On June 3, air raids became much more intense, and daytime flights had to be stopped. On the night from the third to the fourth, about 53 thousand allied fighters were evacuated, but on the fourth the Germans finally went on the offensive, and the operation had to be completed. The last ship, the British destroyer Sicariy, left the French coast at 3:40 am on 4 June with approximately nine hundred evacuees on board. The two French divisions left to cover the perimeter were left to fend for themselves and were forced to surrender.
The result of Operation Dynamo was the rescue of more than a third of a million soldiers and officers - that is, in fact, the entire British Expeditionary Force in France (its total number was about 400 thousand people). The loss of almost all equipment and a significant number of weapons, of course, hit hard on the combat capability of the British army, but the preservation of a large mass of personnel - personnel, trained, well-coordinated and, most importantly, possessing real combat experience - almost completely compensated for this. In addition, it is not worth mentioning the powerful impact on the morale of the UK population. The guys returned home safe and sound, and did not perish ingloriously on the wrong side - against this background, the loss of tanks with guns was perceived as an annoying trifle. Tanks, they say, can be made and new. Since the rout and stampede that preceded the evacuations was understandably not covered by the British media, the incident had a heroic connotation in the eyes of the civilians. They say they suffered from the enemy, but did not allow themselves to be killed and did not surrender, so they could later return and take revenge. The expression "Dunkirk spirit" has even entered the circulation of the English spoken language, meaning the unanimous rallying of the people in the face of a terrible threat. It is not known whether it arose naturally or was introduced by propaganda, but it appears in the dictionaries.
The evacuated soldiers are met at home
The British still remember the evacuation, calling it the "Miracle at Dunkirk". In her memory, a special "Dunkirk" flag was established, the right to raise which only civilian ships participating in the "Dynamo" operation have the right to. Several dozen of them have survived to this day; they regularly take part in celebrations dedicated to the anniversaries of the evacuation.
"Dunkirk flag"
