The Dunkirk Evacuation: The French Perspective: Operation Dynamo and the Untold Story of the French Sacrifice to Save the BEF

Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg in the West on 10 May 1940.As German troops advanced, the British Expeditionary Force, the French First Army and the Belgian Army found themselves squeezed into a narrow corridor between Lille and Dunkirk.By 24 May, there were 400,000 soldiers trapped there, with only one chance of survival - to be evacuated. Somehow, the beleaguered Allied troops had to hold off the might of the German forces long enough for the bulk of the British, French and Belgian soldiers to be saved.Day after day the Germans attacked the defensive perimeter, but the defenders hung on. ‘Even in defeat’, wrote a German commander on 29 May, ‘the French fight like lions … the BEF is in complete disintegration.It has simply deserted all its vehicles and equipment and is fleeing to the sea.’As the troops were lifted from the beaches and Dunkirk harbour, fewer and fewer men were left to defend the thinning and shrinking perimeter, one whole sector of which was manned by French troops.Fin