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Sometimes in history, people make choices that, in hindsight, are so simple and elegant that it beggars the imagination how anyone could have done anything differently. After a month of fighting the German onslaught across the Low Countries and France, there was not a lot of fight left in the BEF. The British and other trapped Allied troops had to be evacuated from France to prepare for the next battle - the one for England. On 4 June 1940, the RAF and the Royal Navy ended what was called Operation DYNAMO, the evacuation of troops from the coastal ports and beaches that included Dunkirk, the best known. The Royal Navy, protected by the RAF, rescued over 330,000 British Empire soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen from the French piers, moles, and beaches. But too there were nearly 140,000 French, Polish, Belgian, and Dutch fighting men evacuated at the same time. This was also the last mission of the Sea Fencibles—Britain's "fishermen's militia" that regular sailors had derided for most of their existence. Called to service once more, between 800 and 900 small vessels from a two-meter sailing vessel named Dinky to ferries, merchant ships, Thames yachts, fishing smacks and merchant ships risked everything to save a desperate army.
Desperate times, desperate measures…
Amid the heroism and chaos in those desperate days, we rarely see that the interregnum, which permitted the nine-day operation, showed German weakness. As the German Army pressed around the edges, much of it in northern France was out of fuel, having outrun its supplies. While the Luftwaffe attacked the air umbrella and occasionally the desperate operation of the surface, they, too, had come to the limits of their operational range. While several U-boats attacked the streams of ships and boats, the Kriegsmarine had no way of coordinating any other attacking units. Ultimately, while the several German commanders would point fingers at each other for their failure to stop the evacuation, that the British and their Allies could pull such a combined operation together with a few hours of planning said much about the disparities in Allied vs German combat power.
Desperate speeches…
On that same day, Winston Churchill, who had been Prime Minister for a little less than a month, addressed the House of Commons in what has since been called the "we shall fight them on the beaches" speech. Among other notable passages, it included:
...we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...
After delivering the entire address (about 10 minutes), Churchill was heard to also quip, "And we’ll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!"
And some speech it was…
The speech quickly received praise as historic and has since been one of the seminal speeches of World War II—or ever—in English. Despite Britain's desperate situation, with exhausted troops and no equipment, a leader with immense audacity had the cheek to talk about continuing to fight, even after being driven off the Continent in four weeks and facing many other challenges.
How dark was it, really?
I’ve addressed this before; it wasn’t all that dark. Germany’s navy was small and ill-prepared to engage the British Home Fleet in anything like a fleet action. The Luftwaffe was at the end of its powers. The Army still had the French to contend with, even though they wouldn’t fight for long, and had no practical way to cross the Channel. And all this time, the British simply refused to see reason; reason that many in France believed would soon come to the British government and they, too, would seek an armistice. Throughout the summer of 1940, France held out the hope that England would just give up like they had. But they didn’t.
Sergeant’s Business and Other Stories
One story in this collection, “Marbury Rose,” depicts a young woman on one of those civilian vessels doing the rescuing at Dunkirk. The entire collection is about the spit-in-the-eye kind of courage Churchill and most of Britain displayed in 1940.
Oh, there are other stories, from prehistory to Korea and after, but “Marbury Rose” is the only one in 1940. Available from your favorite bookseller or from me if you want an autograph.
Coming Up…
The Turning Point
History and Zeitgeist
And Finally...
On 6 July:
1535: On orders of Henry VIII, Thomas More is beheaded on Tower Hill near London, England. More, who had been Henry’s good friend and chancellor at one time, refused to recognize the king as the head of the Church of England. Of course, More wasn’t the only one to pay for this insolence with his life; just the best known.
1885: Louis Pasteur vaccinates nine-year-old Joseph Meister against rabies in Paris, France. A rabid dog had bitten the boy 14 times, condemning him to a short but agonizing death in three to ten days. The treatment, serums derived from the spines of rabid rabbits, was successful.
And today is INTERNATIONAL KISSING DAY, unlike NATIONAL Kissing Day, that was on 22 June. Just make sure both the kisser and kissed think it’s OK…