Derek Pennington - The German Peace

The astonishing rapidity — some thought bordering on recklessness — of the advance of the German panzers through Belgium and into France, had caught the Allies completely by surprise. Their major force, including the BEF, was surrounded and trapped in a narrow pocket of land at the small northern French port of Dunkirk. It quickly became obvious that these British, French and Belgian troops were in an untenable situation.

In England, the newly appointed Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, told a grave and silent House of Commons, “We are facing a colossal military disaster. The whole root, core and brain of the British Army is in danger of being lost.”

Churchill was sixty five years old. He had been born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. After an early and distinguished career in the army in many different parts of the world, he had followed in his father’s footsteps and entered politics. That was in 1900. He had been appointed Prime Minister on 10 May, only days before the retreat to Dunkirk.

For years he had been the most outspoken and relentless critic of Adolf Hitler and continually warned of the dangers posed by the rise of Nazi Germany. He had watched his predecessor’s policy of appeasement in dismay. ‘ Now the chickens are coming home to roost,’ he thought. But the knowledge that he had been right all along, gave him no satisfaction whatsoever.

The British Government and the army Chief of Staff jointly decided that there was no realistic alternative other than to bring the army home from Dunkirk. Otherwise it faced annihilation. A hastily improvised evacuation plan was drawn up under the code name ‘ Operation Dynamo’ . This was to be handled by the Royal Navy under the direction of Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsey. His orders were simple. He was to embark ‘as many as possible, as quickly as possible’.

Commencement date was to be 26 May.

Around Dunkirk and on its beaches the allied soldiers dug in and put up fierce resistance as the German forces relentlessly pushed them back. The German pressure was enormous and unending. The British had only rifles and a few machine guns with which to face enemy mortars, artillery, armour and air power. Fighting was often at close quarters and there were many unbelievable acts of bravery on both sides.

In one case, Captain Marcus Ervine-Edwards of the East Lancashire Regiment was holding a line of defence in the face of vastly superior enemy forces. When part of his position was threatened, he and a few volunteers went forward and climbed onto the top of a straw roofed barn. They were armed only with rifles and one light machine gun. Ervine-Edwards personally accounted for seventeen of the enemy with his rifle and quite a few more with the machine gun. Only when the barn was on fire and they were out of ammunition did he lead his men back into the lines and take up their position again.

Captain Ervine-Edwards was awarded the VC for this action.

Treatment for the many wounded among the besieged quickly became a very serious burden. It was far less of a problem for the besiegers who could simply send their own wounded to the rear for treatment and hospitalisation.

The evacuation also had its problems.

It was proving difficult to take men off the beaches. It was a slow process and it soon became obvious that it was not going to work due to the huge number of troops involved. After two days fewer than twenty thousand of the more than four hundred thousand troops had been lifted off.

The boats and ships of the evacuation fleet were continuously strafed and bombed in dogged and ferocious attacks by Luftwaffe aircraft, despite the best efforts of the Royal Air Force to defend them. There were daring and near suicidal attacks by German E-boats and U-boats. Enemy mines were also taking their toll. Losses were rising.

The men stranded on the open beaches were machine gunned and bombed throughout the day by enemy aircraft, and bombarded by artillery non-stop, including during the night. Casualties were horrific.

On 28 May it all came to a head.

The Navy lost more ship that morning, including two destroyers in the space of an hour. Ship losses over the last few days now totalled thirty five merchantmen and nine destroyers.

The RAF was also taking unacceptable losses. Neither did they have an unlimited supply of fighter aircraft and pilots. Repeated pleas from Winston Churchill for more aircraft over Dunkirk and France, fell on deaf ears. The commander of RAF Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding, defied his Prime Minister and reluctantly gave the order to curtail aircraft patrols outside of the home country. He had made the hard and bitter decision that the number of fighters and fighter pilots the RAF still had operational, would be barely sufficient to defend Britain once the shambles of Dunkirk was over.

Churchill was most displeased.

The soldiers on the beaches, desperately waiting for deliverance, continued to be subjected to a non-stop bombardment from which they had no defence or protection. They were being slaughtered. The cost in lives of holding out at Dunkirk had become unacceptably high.

Finally, about midday, the Germans broke through the defence perimeter in two places.

Lord Gort had watched the situation rapidly deteriorate. After consulting with his own, and the French senior officers, as well as the senior naval officer present, he radioed his headquarters in Britain and advised that the cost in men and ships did not warrant continuing the evacuation operation. He requested instructions.

Two hours later new orders were received. He was authorised to arrange the immediate surrender of all troops under his command. Lord Gort himself, and all other senior officers were to be brought back to England immediately, and all British ships were to leave the area.

When told of this, Lord Gort wasted no time in getting his officers together and issued instructions for surrender. He also thanked the navy for their offer of a ‘ride home,’ but he was staying where he was. In Dunkirk with his men!

The British fleet of ships headed home. White flags were hoisted on land. The guns fell silent. The Battle for Dunkirk was over.

At a meeting of his War Cabinet in London that evening Churchill was morose. He told them, “We and our allies were completely unprepared for the rapid mobile operations of the Germans. This is the biggest military disaster Great Britain has suffered since the loss of the American colonies, over one hundred and fifty years ago.”

He shook his head as if in disbelief. “We have been outfought at every turn. The BEF have had to abandon at Dunkirk, 2500 guns, 69 000 vehicles, and over 600 000 tons of ammunition, stores and fuel”. He paused. “I have to tell you gentlemen, it is my considered opinion that it is highly unlikely Britain could resist a German invasion as things stand right now.”

He sighed, poured himself a small whisky, and gathered his thoughts. He straightened in his seat, “Now. To business….”

The following day, 29 May, as Lord Gort marched at the head of his men into captivity, he observed a group of German officers, which included at least six generals, snap to attention and salute as he marched past. He noted curiously that none of them used the Nazi salute. Courteous as always, he returned their salute. And carried on marching.

Early on the morning of 2 June, after allowing his exhausted men a much needed four day rest and recuperation, except for the poor engineering and supply support troops, who had to work like demons, the Commander in Chief of the German forces, General Walther von Brauchitsch, launched his forces deep into France in the second phase of the operation to subdue their traditional enemy.