The light, cold sand, on which the channel’s gray waves die out one by one, is bathed in dirty and tired helmets. They look like tin bowls, although officers always prefer to call them “combat bowler hats.” Dunkirk – or Dunkirk, if you prefer – a French coastal town just ten kilometers from Belgium is literally the last resort for the British Exeditionary Force, what is left of the Armée de Terre and the stragglers of the small Belgian army .
They are overwhelmed by the advance of the Wehrmacht, which efficiently and very powerfully enclosed them in a pocket of less than a hundred square kilometers and could overwhelm them at any moment. Retreat after retreat, 300,000 men gathered behind the perimeter defenses, waiting to be evacuated under the incessant bombardment, carried – in dives – by the Luftwaffe Stuka: who tormented them like rats in a sand vat. That was the state of affairs, the prelude to the largest evacuation mission in history: Operation Dynamo.
After the German offensive (Operation Case Yellowed), which, due to the unstoppable advance of the Panzer Division, forced the Anglo-Franco-Belgian contingent to move to the Lys line Falling back on the Dunkirk coast, which the British General Staff declared utterly incapable of resisting any further offensive, gave orders for vehicles and men to be gathered near the beaches Return to England. Where, in all likelihood, the fight would resume shortly thereafter.
Subject to continuous artillery fire and constant raids by Luftwaffe bombers, thousands of men gathered in disorder after being ordered to reach the coast as quickly as possible. Thus on the beach at Dunkirk one soon found whole columns of light vessels and hundreds of detachments, groups, fragments of disbanded and various regiments, shoulder to shoulder for the arrival of the warships of the Royal Navy be brought to safety. Merchant ships, ferries, mail boats, civilian boats, private fishing yachts, even sailing yachts.
The great fleet counted in the end as a whole 693 boats – the smallest, a goiter of 4.5 meters was called Tamzine – and set sail ruthlessly from all the ports of southern England to cross the Channel, reach France, and then hastily divert to Dover. At them there would have been the 500 kg bombs of the Ju-87 “Stuka” dive bombers, the salvos of machine guns and cannons of the Bf-109 “Emil” fighters, the Schnellboote of the Kriegsmarine and below, in the dark depths of the sleeve, the fearsome submarines ready to launch their torpedoes at the target.
The greatest rescue in history
May 27 under the command of the admiral Bertram Ramsey, Operation Dynamo had. Under heavy bombardment, the first 7,100 soldiers were repatriated, but casualties were heavy and it was immediately clear that operating by day would mean suicide. Frightened by the incursions of enemy planes, the men, who were not killed by the salvos of the fighters and the splinters of the bombs, threw themselves into the sea, although they could not swim. Death came just as punctually by drowning. Everywhere ships crammed with soldiers leapt into the air after hitting French mines or being hit by torpedoes and bombs. More than two hundred boats will not return. You will disappear at the bottom of the canal; All that remains on the surface are huge patches of fiery naphtha and corpses in sodden khaki uniforms that have once ruptured their hulls, one after the other, their life jackets still snug around their waists.
The Royal Air Force, accused by British soldiers of failing to effectively repel enemy air raids, alternated between 32 Hurricane, Spitfire, Defiant and medium bombers. The latter often flew over the low clouds of the Channel to intercept the enemy, they were not even seen, but over a hundred planes were shot down in mid-air in the ranks of the two dueling factions. As the British artillery pieces are deployed along the entrenched line desired by General Gort, ammunition begins to run out and the Panzer IIs and Panzer IVs, flanked by the armored vehicles of the SS Totenkopf Division, gain ground on the Allied bridgehead Floor.
On May 30, thanks to the intervention of British Navy destroyers, another 54,000 men are rescued. The situation was on the verge of collapse, however, and casualties between ships and men were prohibitive. However, during the nine days of Dynamo, the evacuation voyages of the British Expeditionary Force and the remnants of the French Army continue uninterrupted. They will not end until June 4th, when the last soldiers of the army sail to Dover.
The unexpected result will eventually astound even the pessimists: 338,226 men, of which 198,229 British and 139,997 French and Belgians were able to escape across the English Channel. On the other hand, 34,000 soldiers who arrived too late at the rendezvous point on the beach at Dunkirk, just as the city was falling under complete German control, are forced to surrender. By contrast, at the end of the English Channel HMS Grafton, HMS Granade, HMS Wakeful, HMS Basilisk, HMS Havant, HMS Keith of the Royal Navy were ready; Bourrasque, Sirocco, Le Foudroynat by the Marine National not yet loyal to Vichy. Beside it lay the wrecks of dozens of civilian and merchant ships of various tonnage, who had decided to serve their homeland and their cause. At the top, they were brave in many cases and remained themselves stubborn captains and Sunday sailors. heroes for a day
An opportunity to win the lost war
After overpowering the Allies in a furious advance Beginning on May 1, the armored and mechanized divisions under the command of Generals von Rundstedt and von Kluge – who had crossed the Meuse at Arras, Boulogne and Calais – had continued until the second phase of the German offensive (Operation fawn red, ed.). This decision, justified as a “rest” to be granted to their men who could “take it easy” in front of an enemy on the ropes, will prove to be a catastrophic strategic blunder with unimaginable consequences. The few days of rest actually allowed the British expeditionary force to reorganize the upcoming evacuation. Also accomplice to this armistice was Field Marshal Goering, who urged Dunkirk to be surrendered to his Luftwaffe.
The one who revealed himself as one on paper landslide victory acquired by the Germans, now masters of Europe and one step away from the annihilation of the entire British army, it will be contemplated by Winston Churchill the House of Commons heard his now well-known speech as a “miracle”. On the same occasion, aware of the inevitable nearness of the invasion of the United Kingdom, he uttered the famous phrase: “We will fight them on the beaches..” Beaches that the Germans, however, would never set foot due to the lack of logistical capacity in the area of amphibious operations and thanks to the tenacity of the few RAF pilots who will fight hard in the clouds during the Battle of Britain, many of the men who crossed the Channel in the days of Dynamo will be defeated in the field, drenched with sea and with pride injured, they will cross the same sea again four years later to attack the beaches of Normandy.