Dunkirk Evacuations (Operation Dynamo)

On 12 May 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of France. By 14 May, German panzers had crossed the Meuse and had opened up a gap in the Allied front. Six days later they reached the English Channel.

British, French, Belgian and Canadian troops had been forced back to Dunkirk by the advancing German Army. Nearly all the escape routes to the English Channel had been cut off; a terrible disaster had appeared inevitable.

Operation Dynamo[edit]

The British, French and Belgium military commanders had seriously underestimated the strength of the German Armed Forces. As a result, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), as well as French, Canadian and Belgian troops, found themselves fighting against overwhelming odds. Before long, the Allied forces had retreated to the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk where they were trapped.

In an effort to at least evacuate some of the troops, Winston Churchill ordered the start of Operation Dynamo. This plan took its name from the dynamo room (which provided electricity) in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, where Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay had planned the operation.

Royal Navy destroyers and transport ships were sent to evacuate the troops, but they only expected to have time to lift off about 30,000 troops.

However, in one of the most widely debated and controversial decisions of the war, Hitler ordered his generals to halt for three days, giving the Allies time to organize the evacuation. In the end, despite heavy attacks from German fighter and bomber planes on the beaches, no full scale German attack was launched and over 330,000 Allied troops were rescued.

On 4 June 4, 1940, the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast ends as German forces capture the beach port. The 9-day evacuation, the largest of its kind in history and an unexpected success, saved 338,000 Allied troops from capture by the Germans.

Between May 27 and June 4, nearly 700 ships brought over 338,000 personnel back to Britain, including 140,000 soldiers of the French Army. All heavy equipment was abandoned and left in France.

At the time Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it "a miracle of deliverance".

Operation Ariel[edit]

However, 140-150,000^[1][2][3] British soldiers were unable to reach Dunkirk in time to be evacuated and were captured or fought as part of the "Second BEF" at Forges-les-Eaux and St Valéry-en-Caux where the bulk of the British 1st Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, Beauman Division and supporting 1st Canadian Division were overrun on 8 and 12 June.

Another 141,000 British soldiers (including reinforcements), were evacuated through various French ports from 15–25 June during Operation Ariel.^[4]

English Channel Islands[edit]

As the German Army stormed through France in June 1940, some 30,000 Channel Islanders (one third of the total population) were evacuated.

Hitler considered the Channel Islands - Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm - a valuable stepping stone for the invasion of Britain, as they sat just 20 miles off the French coast. Winston Churchill, however, could not afford to defend them following the heavy losses in weaponry during Operations Dynamo and Ariel and decided to de-militarize them and leave them undefended.

Following the German occupation of the English Channel Islands, there were around 150,000 British soldiers and military age men in German hands.^[5]

Losses[edit]

The BEF lost 68,000 soldiers (dead, wounded, missing, or captured) from 10 May until the final evacuations at Dunkirk on 4 June, during Operation Dynamo.^[6]

3,500 British were killed and 13,053 were reported sick or wounded during the retreat to Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo.^[7] According to British military historian Robin Neillands in his book The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition (Indiana University Press, 2005), some 60,000 British soldiers were captured in the retreat to Dunkirk. The Germans also overran one Canadian, three British divisions, two supporting anti-aircraft brigades and the supply base of Dieppe, in the weeks following the Dunkirk evacuations, during Operation Ariel.^[8][9][10]

All the British heavy equipment had to be abandoned. Left behind in France were 2,350 field, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, 120,000 vehicles, 600 tanks; also abandoned were 8,000 Bren light machine-guns, 90,000 rifles and corresponding ammunition.^[11]

French capitulation[edit]

With Western Europe abandoned by its main defenders, the German Army swept through the rest of France, and Paris fell on 14 June. Eight days later, Henri Petain signed an armistice with the German commanders at Compiegne. Germany annexed half the country, leaving the other half in the hands of the Vichy French. On 6 June 6, 1944, liberation of Western Europe finally began with the successful Allied landing at Normandy.

Notes[edit]