Miracle at Dunkirk

In late April of 1940, as Britain struggled for survival against relentless Nazi aggression, Germany began its invasion of the low countries, prompting French and British forces to move into Belgium to repel the attack. In classic diversionary blitzkrieg fashion, German forces then smashed through the Allies’ weak point in the Ardenne, effectively surrounding Allied forces at the French port of Dunkirk, their backs desperately pinned to the English Channel.

British Trapped at Dunkirk

By May 19th, as the Nazis charged across Belgium, they cut off all communication and transport links between the northern and southern branches of the Allied force, prompting Winston Churchill to weigh the odds of an evacuation in light of certain annihilation of the hundreds of thousands of men now trapped at Dunkirk. In response, Operation Dynamo began on May 26th under the direction of Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay, with expectations of evacuating no more than 45,000 troops.

Near Impossible Feat

Instead, a confluence of good fortune led to the successful evacuation of some 338,000 men, as they clung to a beachhead under constant bombardment by the still dominant Luftwaffe. Aided by 800 to 1,200 vessels, including leisure and fishing crafts manned primarily by British naval personnel, the unusually gentle weather conditions allowed small boats to pick up men in minimal surf conditions, before ferrying them out to larger vessels. A second saving grace was Ramsay’s creative use of Dunkirk’s Harbor Mole or breakwater, which allowed larger ships to onboard men at a much faster pace, while Hitler’s halt order to his advancing troops, gave the Allies a merciful reprieve from what Churchill called “a miracle of deliverance.”

Embraced as Heroes

Fully expecting a frosty reception on their defeated homecoming—publicly vilified with their tail between their legs—instead, the rescued men found themselves welcomed home like heroes, all at a time when Great Britain was in desperate need of a major morale boost, a little more than a month before their fight for survival in the Battle of Britain. Given the vast amount of equipment and weaponry left behind at Dunkirk, some historians believe that the loss of so many war assets left Britain open for immediate invasion by Nazi forces, had the Germans had the plans or will or ability to advance on England, making the miracle at Dunkirk, a vital morale boost to a nation’s dogged sense of freedom.