The Dunkirk Perimeter and Evacuation 1940

The Dunkirk Perimeter and Evacuation 1940 PDF Author: Jerry Murland
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473852242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The history of a disastrous WWII setback, including numerous photos, maps, and information for visitors. This book tells the story of the fierce fighting around the Dunkirk Perimeter during May and June 1940 between the retreating British Expeditionary Force and its French allies and the advancing German army. This grievous military setback was soon transformed into a morale-boosting symbol of the resilience of the British against a Germany that had crushed so many nations in a matter of weeks. With over 200 black and white photographs and fourteen maps, this book looks at the units deployed around Dunkirk and Nieuport and their often desperate actions to prevent the inevitable advance of German forces opposing them. The evacuation of the BEF from the beaches east of Dunkirk is covered in detail from the perspective of the Royal Navy and from the standpoint of the soldier on the beaches. Also included are details for travelers to the sites involved. In addition to visits to the relevant cemeteries, the book includes three appendices and two car tours, one tour covering the whole of the Dunkirk perimeter and the other covering Ramsgate and Dover, although there is plenty of scope for walking in both tours. There is also a walk around De Panne, which takes the tourist along the beach that saw so much of the evacuation, and into the back areas of the town where the Germans left their mark when clearing up after the British had gone.

The Dunkirk Perimeter and Evacuation 1940

The Dunkirk Perimeter and Evacuation 1940 PDF Author: Jerry Murland
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473852242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book

Book Description
The history of a disastrous WWII setback, including numerous photos, maps, and information for visitors. This book tells the story of the fierce fighting around the Dunkirk Perimeter during May and June 1940 between the retreating British Expeditionary Force and its French allies and the advancing German army. This grievous military setback was soon transformed into a morale-boosting symbol of the resilience of the British against a Germany that had crushed so many nations in a matter of weeks. With over 200 black and white photographs and fourteen maps, this book looks at the units deployed around Dunkirk and Nieuport and their often desperate actions to prevent the inevitable advance of German forces opposing them. The evacuation of the BEF from the beaches east of Dunkirk is covered in detail from the perspective of the Royal Navy and from the standpoint of the soldier on the beaches. Also included are details for travelers to the sites involved. In addition to visits to the relevant cemeteries, the book includes three appendices and two car tours, one tour covering the whole of the Dunkirk perimeter and the other covering Ramsgate and Dover, although there is plenty of scope for walking in both tours. There is also a walk around De Panne, which takes the tourist along the beach that saw so much of the evacuation, and into the back areas of the town where the Germans left their mark when clearing up after the British had gone.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk PDF Author: Robert Jackson
Publisher: Rigel Publications
ISBN: 9781898800095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This is the story of the dark days of 1940, when defeat overtook the British Expeditionary Force in Flanders and the ghost of a great army came home from France. It is the story of a lost campaign, as untried young men armed with little more than rifles took on the might of Hitler's panzer divisions while the Allied armies crumbled on all sides. It is the story of French soldiers too, whose heroism and sacrifice made the deliverance of Dunkirk possible. It was the greatest disaster in British military history: the Second World War was all but lost. Yet from the rout rose that legendary spirit that somehow found triumph in defeat, success in the extraordinary evacuation of so many men from beneath the German guns. Robert Jackson's closely detailed account of three weeks of battle, and the nine days it took an armada of ships to evacuate 198,000 troops, recalls with startling clarity how unprepared were the British for war in 1940. Book jacket.

The Evacuation from Dunkirk

The Evacuation from Dunkirk PDF Author: W.J.R. Gardner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317973585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This is the Naval Staff History of "Operation Dynamo", originally published internally in 1949. British ships evacuated nearly 100,000 men of the BEF from the beaches, and over 200,000 from harbours. Other nations' vessels carried more than 30,000.

The BEF in France 1939-1940

The BEF in France 1939-1940 PDF Author: John Grehan
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783462116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the British force in Europe from 1939_1940 during the Second World War. Commanded by General Lord Gort, the BEF constituted one-tenth of the defending Allied force.??The British Expeditionary Force was started in 1938 in readiness for a perceived threat of war after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 and the claims on the Sudetenland, which led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. After the French and British had promised to defend Poland, the German invasion of that country began and war was declared on 3 September 1939.??The BEF was sent to France in September 1939 and deployed mainly along the Belgian„French border during the so-called Phoney War leading up to May 1940. The BEF did not commence hostilities until the invasion of France on 10 May 1940. After the commencement of battle, they were driven back through Belgium and north-western France, forcing their eventual evacuation from several ports along the French northern coastline in Operations Dynamo, Ariel and Cycle. The most notable evacuation was from the Dunkirk region and from this the phrase Dunkirk Spirit was coined.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk PDF Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141906162
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
* * * Special 75th Anniversary Edition * * * Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man tells the story of the rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk. Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades, and Captain Marcus Ervine-Andrews VC who single-handedly held back a German attack on the Dunkirk perimeter thereby allowing the British line to form up behind him. Told to stand and fight to the last man, these brave few battalions fought in whatever manner they could to buy precious time for the evacuation. Outnumbered and outgunned, they launched spectacular and heroic attacks time and again, despite ferocious fighting and the knowledge that for many only capture or death would end their struggle. 'A searing story . . . both meticulous military history and a deeply moving testimony to the extraordinary personal bravery of individual soldiers' Tim Gardam, The Times 'Sebag-Montefiore tells [the story] with gusto, a remarkable attention to detail and an inexhaustible appetite for tracking down the evidence' Richard Ovary, Telegraph Hugh Sebag-Montefiore was a barrister before becoming a journalist and then an author. He wrote the best-selling Enigma: The Battle for the Code. One of his ancestors was evacuated from Dunkirk.

Retreat & Rearguard: Dunkirk 1940

Retreat & Rearguard: Dunkirk 1940 PDF Author: Jerry Murland
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473881048
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The dramatic story of how a quarter million men were evacuated from the coast of France—and how the British Expeditionary Force fought on. This book, part of the Retreat and Rearguard series, covers the actions of the BEF during the retreat from the Dyle Line to the evacuation points of Dunkirk, Boulogne, Calais, Saint-Valery-en-Caux, and finally the Cherbourg Peninsula. Some of the engagements are relatively well known (Cassell, the Arras counter-attack, and the notorious Le Paradis SS massacre), but the author has unearthed many less known engagements from the long and painful withdrawal. While the main Dunkirk evacuation from the port and beaches was over by early June, elements of the BEF fought on until June 21. In relating those often heroic actions, this book catches the atmosphere of desperate defiance that typified this never-to-be-forgotten period.

Dunkirk 1940

Dunkirk 1940 PDF Author: Douglas C. Dildy
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 9781846034572
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
During the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, German forces successfully cut off several units of British, French and Canadian troops from supporting forces and supplies. Nearly 350,000 Allied troops were left stranded on the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, in France, amounting to what Winston Churchill called "the whole root, core, and brain of the British Army." Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in what was named Operation Dynamo, a total of 338,226 soldiers were rescued by hastily assembled boats to British destroyers and other large ships or directly back to England. This book fills a gap in Osprey's coverage of World War II (1939-1945), as no Campaign titles have yet covered the Dunkirk evacuation, and, unlike previous treatments of the subject, provides a description and assessment of the operation from an operation perspective. Author Doug Dildy relates the various overlapping and interconnected struggles--land forces vs. land forces, air forces vs. air forces, air forces vs. naval forces, all in a race against time--and their operational impacts on one another in one coherent, coordinated volume.

Dunkirk, 1940

Dunkirk, 1940 PDF Author: Patrick Wilson
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Dunkerque (France), Battle of, 1940
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Overwhelmed by the German Blitzkreig, the British Expeditionary Force faced annihilation. Miraculously, and thanks to decisive generalship, over 300,000 troops got back to our island fortress to fight another day. There was much more to the Dunkirk story than evacuating the beaches in the little ships and boats.

The Miracle of Dunkirk

The Miracle of Dunkirk PDF Author: Walter Lord
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453238506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
The true story of the World War II evacuation portrayed in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Day of Infamy. In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England. Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,” The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).

The Dunkirk Evacuation in 100 Objects

The Dunkirk Evacuation in 100 Objects PDF Author: Martin Mace
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 9781526709905
Category : Dunkirk, Battle of, Dunkerque, France, 1940
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
At 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive which instigated the start of Operation Dynamo. This was the order to rescue the British Expeditionary Force from the French port of Dunkirk and the beaches surrounding it. The Admiralty believed that it would only be able to rescue 45,000 men over the course of the following two days. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, however, when Dynamo officially ended, an armada of ships, big and small, naval and civilian achieved what had been considered impossible. In fact, in this period a total of 338,682 men had been disembarked at British ports. Such a figure has exceeded the expectations of most. Little wonder, therefore, that an editorial in The New York Times at the beginning of June declared, So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence. Through 100 objects, from the wreck of a ship through to a dug-up rifle, and individual photographs to large memorials, all of which represent a moving snapshot of the past, the author sets out to tell the story of what came to be known as The Miracle of Dunkirk. The full-colour photographs of each 100 items are accompanied by detailed explanations of the object and the people and events which make them so special or relevant.