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.

## Contents

* 1 Operation Dynamo
* 2 Operation Ariel
* 3 English Channel Islands
* 4 Losses
* 5 French capitulation
* 6 Notes

## 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]

1. ↑ "Operation Dynamo did not bring home the entire BEF. More than 140,000 British troops remained in France, some of whom had failed to reach Dunkirk, whilst others had never even known of the evacuation." Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk, Joshua Levine, p. 257, Random House, 2011
2. ↑ "When the last boatload cleared Dunkirk on 3rd June 1940, there were still nearly 140,000 British troops in France, including 51st Highland Division and 3rd and 12th A A Brigades." Anti-aircraft artillery, 1914-55, N. W. Routledge, p. 122, Brassey's, 1994
3. ↑ "However, following the end of the campaign in France in June 1940, there were around 150,000 British POWs in German hands." Hitler's Renegades: Foreign Nationals in the Service of the Third Reich, Christopher Ailsby, p. 99, Spellmount, 2004
4. ↑ "The second BEF evacuation took place between 15 and 25 June through the ports in the north-west of France. The two operations to bring out the troops were called Operation Ariel and Operation Cycle and between them they managed to rescue 191,870 men. Of these, 141,171 were British, 18,246 were French, 24,352 were Polish, 4,938 were Czechs and 163 were Belgians." Dunkirk 1940: Operation Dynamo, Doug Dildy, p. 88, Osprey Publishing, 2010
5. ↑ "However, following the end of the campaign in France in June 1940, there were around 150,000 British POWs in German hands." Hitler's Renegades: Foreign Nationals in the Service of the Third Reich, Christopher Ailsby, p. 99, Spellmount, 2004
6. ↑ "Enemy action against ships at sea and the beaches resulted in the deaths of some 3,500 British troops out of the total of 68,111 killed, wounded and taken prisoner during the retreat to Dunkirk." Churchill's Channel War 1939-45, Robert Jackson, Osprey Publishing, 2013
7. ↑ "Of these, 211,532 were listed as physically fit British troops, 13,053 as British sick or wounded, and 112,546 as Allies, mostly French but including some Belgians." Britain, Volume 4, p. 4, British Information Services, 1944, 1945
8. ↑ "More than 10,000 men of the 51st (Highland) Division were taken prisoner at Saint-Valery-en-Caux and surrounding area ... The Scots also suffered over 5,000 casualties, including 1,000 killed." The BEF in France 1939-1940: Manning the Front Through to the Dunkirk Evacuation, John Grehan, Martin Mace, Pen and Sword, 2014
9. ↑ "The Allied operations south of the Somme were woefully handled by the French commander and by 9 June Rommel's 7th Panzer were on the Seine at Rouen, leaving most of the British 51st (Highland) and 1st Armoured Divisions cut off. An attempt to evacuate them from St-Valery-en-Caux was largely unsuccessful." Invasion!: Operation Sea Lion, 1940, Martin Marix Evans, p. 45, Routledge, 2014
10. ↑ "where 10,000 men of the 51st Highland Division were waiting for a similar armada to the one at Dunkirk to take them back across the water. Lost in fog, it never arrived ... Then there was another mass surrender at Dieppe." Home Run: Escape from Nazi Europe, John Nichol, Penguin, 2007
11. ↑ "BEF equipment abandoned in France included 120,000 vehicles, 600 tanks, 1,000 field guns, 500 antiaircraft guns, 850 antitank guns, 8,000 Bren guns, 90,000 rifles, and 500,000 tons of ammunition." Battles That Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict, Spencer Tucker, p. 460, ABC-CLIO, 2010