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Images of War
Dunkirk: Nine Days That Saved An Army: A Day-by-Day Account of the Greatest Evacuation
The epic of Dunkirk has been told many times, but the numerous accounts from surviving soldiers and sailors were often a blur of fear and fighting with the days mingling into each other, leaving what is, at times, a confusing picture. In this book, adopting a day by day approach, the author provides a clear portrayal of the unfolding drama on the perimeter around Dunkirk, in the port itself and along the beaches to La Panne and the Belgian border.Reports from many of the captains of the vessels which took part in the great evacuation were submitted to the Admiralty immediately after the conclusion of Operation Dynamo. With access to these, and supported by the various records maintained by the Army and RAF, the author has been able to finally piece together the movements and actions of the many of the squadrons, units and ships involved.With the Admiralty reports and a mass of other firsthand accounts, many of which have never been published before, the true tale of the heroism of the rescued and the rescuers is laid bare. Operation Dynamo saw civilian volunteers and Royal Navy personnel manning every type of craft from the antiaircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta to the cockle boats of the Thames Estuary. The accounts of the men who crewed these vessels tell of being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe or shelled from the shore. There are stories of collisions in the dark, chaos on the beaches and tragic losses as ships went down. Similar tales are told by the men waiting on the beaches, defending the perimeter or flying in the skies overhead in a valiant effort to hold the German Army and Luftwaffe at bay.Yet this is ultimately a story, as Churchill described it, of deliverance, for against all the predictions, the BEF was saved to fight again another day. With civilians and servicemen working without respite for days and nights on end under almost continual attack to rescue the army, the nation pulled together as never before. It truly was Britains finest hour.
441 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 30, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 27, 2020
(This is odd: the copy I have does not have Martin Mace as the author but John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll))
Few events sit higher in British military mythology than the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in May 1940. What was a staggering defeat by any measure became a source of national pride, a turning point not towards defeat but victory. It remains so with numerous books written about it and two major movies produced to tell the story. The latter is important because Dunkirk is understood best as a visual event; numbers and statistics are important, but do not have the image of a long line of defeated soldiers standing in the sea under fire, waiting for a ship to rescue them. That is where John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll’s Dunkirk Evacuation Operation Dynamo comes in as part of the Images of War series of books.
After an outline, narrating the fall of France that led to the evacuation, the authors describe the events chronologically across the nine days it took to bring those men back home. John Grehan has recently written a book on this subject, so we can skip across the text, suffice to say that in this volume it is well-paced and works well with the photographs. Grehan and Nicoll make it clear that likely catastrophe was all that most of the BEF could look forward to as they retreated back to Dunkirk, but instead an extraordinary effort was made to get the men off the beaches by a flotilla of ships large and small.
It is the photographs, however, that make this book: many are of the ships, planes, and men that crossed the Channel, and what became of some of them; others show the British streaming into the town and gathering on the beaches, including action shots of men firing and bombs exploding. The detritus of war is strewn across many of the photographs: vehicles and equipment abandoned in the flight of a retreating army – the British left an awful lot behind them, including many men. The ‘Aftermath’ chapter pictures were taken by the victorious Germans, which I found particularly interesting; how easy they must have thought war was at the time. A few photographs are stills from the 1958 movie Dunkirk, which I thought cheapened the book a bit and they should not have added them; they did not need to. Otherwise, Dunkirk Evacuation Operation Dynamo is an informative journey through the drama that was Dunkirk and a welcome addition to the Images of War series. 8/10
Few events sit higher in British military mythology than the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in May 1940. What was a staggering defeat by any measure became a source of national pride, a turning point not towards defeat but victory. It remains so with numerous books written about it and two major movies produced to tell the story. The latter is important because Dunkirk is understood best as a visual event; numbers and statistics are important, but do not have the image of a long line of defeated soldiers standing in the sea under fire, waiting for a ship to rescue them. That is where John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll’s Dunkirk Evacuation Operation Dynamo comes in as part of the Images of War series of books.
After an outline, narrating the fall of France that led to the evacuation, the authors describe the events chronologically across the nine days it took to bring those men back home. John Grehan has recently written a book on this subject, so we can skip across the text, suffice to say that in this volume it is well-paced and works well with the photographs. Grehan and Nicoll make it clear that likely catastrophe was all that most of the BEF could look forward to as they retreated back to Dunkirk, but instead an extraordinary effort was made to get the men off the beaches by a flotilla of ships large and small.
It is the photographs, however, that make this book: many are of the ships, planes, and men that crossed the Channel, and what became of some of them; others show the British streaming into the town and gathering on the beaches, including action shots of men firing and bombs exploding. The detritus of war is strewn across many of the photographs: vehicles and equipment abandoned in the flight of a retreating army – the British left an awful lot behind them, including many men. The ‘Aftermath’ chapter pictures were taken by the victorious Germans, which I found particularly interesting; how easy they must have thought war was at the time. A few photographs are stills from the 1958 movie Dunkirk, which I thought cheapened the book a bit and they should not have added them; they did not need to. Otherwise, Dunkirk Evacuation Operation Dynamo is an informative journey through the drama that was Dunkirk and a welcome addition to the Images of War series. 8/10
September 13, 2020
Dunkirk was not only a major defeat for the British but also a great victory. The British army had been surrounded, the French army had collapsed, and the British were on the verge of the biggest defeat being inflicted on them.
With the battle for France lost, the British government made preparations for the largest rescue mission in history to lift thousands of soldiers off the beaches of Dunkirk. So, a dramatic and chaotic retreat was turned into a great victory by rescuing a large proportion of the British Expeditionary Force from France. This was achieved using a flotilla of Naval and privately owned ships and boats.
This book features images taken during the 9 days it took to achieve the impossible to visually describe a vivid account of the dramatic scenes that were witnessed on the beaches. It has become the greatest wartime evacuation of British soldiers in history.
As usual with this series of books it includes never before seen photograph. Throughout the alongside the photographs of Dunkirk is nicely written information describing the operation in detail. Each chapter is a single day of the operation, consisting of detailed information of the day’s events alongside dramatic images.
This is a great visual resource of the operation, one that most people are aware of, but may not know the details. I would definitely recommend this for wargamers who are considering re-enacting this particular event from WW2. It’s also a useful resource anyone considering building a diorama based on the events of Dunkirk.
With the battle for France lost, the British government made preparations for the largest rescue mission in history to lift thousands of soldiers off the beaches of Dunkirk. So, a dramatic and chaotic retreat was turned into a great victory by rescuing a large proportion of the British Expeditionary Force from France. This was achieved using a flotilla of Naval and privately owned ships and boats.
This book features images taken during the 9 days it took to achieve the impossible to visually describe a vivid account of the dramatic scenes that were witnessed on the beaches. It has become the greatest wartime evacuation of British soldiers in history.
As usual with this series of books it includes never before seen photograph. Throughout the alongside the photographs of Dunkirk is nicely written information describing the operation in detail. Each chapter is a single day of the operation, consisting of detailed information of the day’s events alongside dramatic images.
This is a great visual resource of the operation, one that most people are aware of, but may not know the details. I would definitely recommend this for wargamers who are considering re-enacting this particular event from WW2. It’s also a useful resource anyone considering building a diorama based on the events of Dunkirk.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews