As German panzer divisions closed in, a hastily assembled fleet of naval vessels, requisitioned pleasure craft, and civilian fishing boats pulled Allied soldiers off the beaches of Dunkirk under constant Luftwaffe bombardment. Codenamed Operation Dynamo, the effort turned a catastrophic military defeat into a morale-boosting story of survival, though it cost the British nearly all their heavy equipment left behind in France.
By late May 1940 the British Expeditionary Force and remnants of French and Belgian armies were trapped against the English Channel, hemmed in by German armor that had sliced through the Ardennes with terrifying speed. Winston Churchill, newly installed as prime minister, braced the nation for the loss of the entire army.
Instead, Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay orchestrated a evacuation from a bunker beneath Dover Castle, summoning every vessel that could float—destroyers, minesweepers, paddle steamers, and roughly 700 "little ships" crewed by civilian volunteers who sailed into a warzone to ferry men from the shallow beaches to larger ships waiting offshore. German dive bombers strafed the sands and sank ships in the harbor, yet the operation kept running for nine days.
When it concluded, 338,226 men had reached England, far more than the 30,000 originally hoped for. Churchill warned Parliament against calling it a triumph—it was, he said, "a colossal military disaster"—yet the rescued army became the nucleus of Britain's continued resistance, and the spirit of the "Dunkirk little ships" entered British national mythology as proof that ordinary people could answer an extraordinary crisis.
Key people: Winston Churchill, Bertram Ramsay