First published 2011
In May 1940, German forces trap over 400,000 Allied troops at Dunkirk with Hitler's army just ten miles away. The British Expeditionary Force faces annihilation after their defenses collapse against superior German tactics. On May 26th, the British Admiralty launches Operation Dynamo, dispatching every available vessel across the Channel. Navy destroyers sail alongside pleasure cruisers and fishing boats in an unprecedented rescue mission. Of 850 "Little Ships" that answer the call, 235 fall victim to German aircraft and mines. Over nine desperate days, this flotilla evacuates 338,000 British and French soldiers from the beaches. Joshua Levine draws from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive to present firsthand accounts from both the rescued and their rescuers. The voices of ordinary sailors, soldiers, and civilians reveal the human drama behind what Winston Churchill called a "miracle of deliverance." Their testimonies capture the chaos, courage, and determination that transformed potential disaster into the birth of "Dunkirk spirit."
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, military-history
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: firsthand-accounts, human-drama
Setting: Dunkirk
Period: May 1940
312 pages · Paperback · Ebury Press