World War II’s “Miracle of Dunkirk” began on May 27, 1940, when the first of some 338,000 British, French and Belgian troops were evacuated from the French coast. The Allies had retreated to the sea a few days earlier after failing to block Germany’s blitzkrieg invasion of France and the Low Countries. They were cornered and facing imminent destruction, but when Adolf Hitler unwisely halted his Panzer tanks’ advance, the British Expeditionary Force was able to fortify the port of Dunkirk and initiate a frantic retreat codenamed “Operation Dynamo.”
As the Royal Air Force dueled with the Luftwaffe in the skies overhead, the British Admiralty cobbled together a fleet of over 900 Navy ships, merchant vessels, ferries, and paddle steamers and began transporting soldiers to the English mainland under heavy fire. Scores of civilians also chipped in by piloting fishing boats and pleasure craft across the heavily mined English Channel. The British initially feared it would only be possible to retrieve 45,000 men over the course of 48 hours, but the ragtag armada eventually spent nine days executing the largest sea evacuation in history. Allied losses were still sobering—many ships were sunk and some 40,000 men were left behind and captured—but those that escaped later played a crucial role in the continued fight against Nazi Germany.
