Dunkirk

[Lang]

Bruce, I have not read that book but several others of the period, all with different perspectives. References are easy as you just take the bits that fit your argument, even out of context, as anyone writing a paper for a university assignment will tell you. Look impressive though.

I have read two books on the Hess incident, one claims he was an authorised Hitler emissary and the other that he was an extremely strange fellow doing his own thing.

The "Halt to negotiate" theory loses ground in my view. If you are negotiating in good faith, even hoping for the others to come across to your side as you suggest, why would you continue to kill thousands of people by air attack during the so called reprieve period?

I think the most likely is - They are cornered like rats in a trap against the sea, with nowhere to go. We are only going to lose hundreds of our blokes in an assault why not just starve them out and terrify them with bombing until they come to their senses and give up. Whether this idea came from the field commander, Army Headquarters or Hitler personally doesn't really matter.

Lang

[Lang]

There does not seem to be too much conspiracy in this history.

Notice how the generals tried to blame Hitler. Rundstedt called the halt because of going for his tanks and supply problems. Hitler visited to see for himself and obviously was convinced by the generals - "Hitler endorsed the order..."

Manstein described it as Hitler's greatest mistake but Hitler gave all due diligence by coming to France, listening to his commander on the spot and endorsing Rundsted's order. Manstein and the others raged later at Hitler over riding generals' orders but when it suits him reverses his position.

The Air Force said they would do the job, giving the allies time to prepare and the French put up a wall to let the British escape.


Main article: Battle of Dunkirk
By 24 May, the Germans had captured the port of Boulogne and surrounded Calais.[30] The engineers of the 2nd Panzer Division under Generalmajor Rudolf Veiel built five bridges over the Canal Line and only one British battalion barred the way to Dunkirk.[40] On 23 May, Rundstedt had ordered the panzer units to halt, concerned about the vulnerability of his flanks and the question of supply to his forward troops.[41][42][43] He was also concerned that the marshy ground around Dunkirk would prove unsuitable for tanks and he wished to conserve them for later operations (in some units, tank losses were 30–50 percent).[44][45] Hitler was also apprehensive, and on a visit to Army Group A headquarters on 24 May, he endorsed the order.[44]

Air Marshal Hermann Göring urged Hitler to let the Luftwaffe (aided by Army Group B[46]) finish off the British, to the consternation of Halder, who noted in his diary that the Luftwaffe was dependent upon the weather and air crews were worn out after two weeks of battle.[47] Rundstedt issued another order, which was sent uncoded. It was picked up by the RAF Y service at 12:42: "By order of the Fuhrer ... attack north-west of Arras is to be limited to the general line Lens-Bethune-Aire-St Omer-Gravelines. The Canal will not be crossed."[48][49] Later that day, Hitler issued Directive 13, which called for the Luftwaffe to defeat the trapped Allied forces and stop their escape.[50] At 15:30 on 26 May, Hitler ordered the panzer groups to continue their advance, but most units took another 16 hours to attack.[51] The delay gave the Allies time to prepare defences vital for the evacuation and prevented the Germans from stopping the Allied retreat from Lille.[52]

The halt order has been the subject of much discussion by historians.[53][54] Guderian considered the failure to order a timely assault on Dunkirk to be one of the major German mistakes on the Western Front.[55] Rundstedt called it "one of the great turning points of the war",[56] and Manstein described it as "one of Hitler's most critical mistakes".[57] B. H. Liddell Hart interviewed many of the generals after the war and put together a picture of Hitler's strategic thinking on the matter. Hitler believed that once Britain's troops left continental Europe, they would never return.[58]

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Lang

Bruce, I have not read that book but several others of the period, all with different perspectives. References are easy as you just take the bits that fit your argument, even out of context, as anyone writing a paper for a university assignment will tell you. Look impressive though.

I have read two books on the Hess incident, one claims he was an authorised Hitler emissary and the other that he was an extremely strange fellow doing his own thing.

The "Halt to negotiate" theory loses ground in my view. If you are negotiating in good faith, even hoping for the others to come across to your side as you suggest, why would you continue to kill thousands of people by air attack during the so called reprieve period?

I think the most likely is - They are cornered like rats in a trap against the sea, with nowhere to go. We are only going to lose hundreds of our blokes in an assault why not just starve them out and terrify them with bombing until they come to their senses and give up. Whether this idea came from the field commander, Army Headquarters or Hitler personally doesn't really matter.

Lang

I've read several accounts as well, and agree many are selective in promoting their version (ever figure out who Jack the Ripper really was? There's a significant number of options to choose from) but read the book and judge for yourself. I cant recall any other account that puts all the pieces together with reference to period documents, diaries, hansard, etc. If all that material exists yet could point to another conclusion I'd love to hear it.

[Lang]

All the drama and publicity of Dunkirk has submerged a smaller but much more dramatic fighting withdrawal from Boulogne at the same time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Boulogne_(1940)

Lang

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

The bigger mystery about the withdrawal from France in 1940 is what happened to the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment's wooden indian mascot. A 6 foot tall colourful beauty it was. It traveled from the roof of a Picton, Ontario canning plant (stolen of course) to England and thence to France. Not risking that it might fall into enemy hands it was hidden. Rumors suggest it was found by some incredulous French farmer but that remains only a rumor.

[Gordon Yeo]

Originally Posted by Bruce Parker

The bigger mystery about the withdrawal from France in 1940 is what happened to the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment's wooden indian mascot. A 6 foot tall colourful beauty it was. It traveled from the roof of a Picton, Ontario canning plant (stolen of course) to England and thence to France. Not risking that it might fall into enemy hands it was hidden. Rumors suggest it was found by some incredulous French farmer but that remains only a rumor.

Bruce

From Farley Mowat's book The Regiment, describing the destruction of vehicles and equipment before evacuating to England.

It was here that we lost Little Chief. He had come over to France with us because he was too heavy to go with the fighting troops. Since he was made of pewter and weighed 500 pounds, we knew we could never take him back to England. Rather than have him taken prisoner, we buried him in a roadside ditch.

[Lang]

Here is a good timeline

Interesting points are about 40% of rescued troops were French and the air losses were much fewer than advertised. Big losses of boats.

This is from Encyclopedia Britannica (current on-line) and from the British Admiralty Historic Section.

[jdmcm]

I believe the "Golden Bridge" theory that Hitler paused the advance to allow a negotiated settlement with Britain has been widely discredited over the years...It seems that "pause" was Hitler exerting his authority over overzealous commanders like Rommel and Guderian who had out stretched their supply lines and exposed their flanks...

[Lang]

John

I think you are correct except it was Rundstedt who stopped the advance for sound tactical reasons. At that stage of the war Hitler was still acting normally and not becoming involved in "minor" unit actions of divisional commanders.

Guderian and Rommel were a PR gift for the public with their dashing performance and I think Hitler would have looked upon them more kindly than Rundstedt their field commander.

Hitler showed sound management and did come to France to see what was going on and endorsed his expert commander Rundstedt's actions as he did for Goering's offer to fill the gap and continue the assault by air (much to the chagrin of the Luftwaffe command)

The use of the the term "Fuhrer Command" normally just indicated it came from the top level High Command not necessarily personally from Hitler (although endorsed by him). Later in the war as he became more unstable a Fuhrer Order was a personal direction of Hitler.

When the army got its act together the order went out to continue the assault but by that time the Dunkirk defenses had been organised and the fox escaped the trap.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Saw the movie last week in Imax format (recommended).

I think it is a great movie - not a historic documentary - as I and my two boys thought it did capture the anxiety, disarray, sometimes even sheer terror, of what it must have been to be on that beach and out on the sea close to Dunkirk.

Ever since I read (in Wheels & Tracks magazine) the comment of a movie director that "if the public comments on vehicles being incorrect, I did not do a good job to make a good movie" (or something along those lines), I have stopped looking at the details and try to get into the flow of the story they are trying to tell. I would have liked to see a little more background/depth in the main characters, but other than that the movie was very much able to keep our attention and even led to some discussion afterwards.

Of course there are many spoilers if you look into the details. One guy I know is a specialist in uniforms and webbings, he had comments I myself did not see. I did note the container cranes in the background and wondered if they could not have edited them out? And then forgot about it and focussed on what happened in the foreground. It must have worked well as I dit not spot the CMP!

On the plus side, they did put a lot of effort in getting the details right where possible: real, flying Spitfires, but of course the ones crashing and burning on the ground are replicas.

Another big plus: this is a movie about the Commonwealth armies! So it might even drop a coin in Joe Public's mind that it weren't only the Americans fighting WW2.

As long as you put off your nitty-gritty-military-equipment-details-anorak, it is well worth viewing on the big screen, I'd say.

HTH,
Hanno

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

I think it is a great movie - not a historic documentary

I guess we all have different definitions of what a good movie is .. it's a subjective thing isn't it !

Me, I reckon the movie industry does a great job of perpetuating fantasy in its many forms. Primarily, at the end of the day, these blockbuster movies are made with the movie company shareholders in mind and the hopeful big profits involved.

I would rather watch a well researched documentary myself , but again , all of history is subjective to some degree and even doco's are open to many types of opinions and imperfections.

I noticed in the Dunkirk movie preview ( shown on tellie here ATM and repeated endlessly ) some of the smallish naval vessels seen off shore the Dunkirk beach look similar to the post war built RN Ton class minesweepers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton-class_minesweeper

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I guess we all have different definitions of what a good movie is .. it's a subjective thing isn't it !

Me, I reckon the movie industry does a great job of perpetuating fantasy in its many forms. Primarily, at the end of the day, these blockbuster movies are made with the movie company shareholders in mind and the hopeful big profits involved.

Movies are entertaiment, for which as many people as possible want to pay. People go to the movies to be entertained and be distracted from their daily life. Maybe dreaming away being a princess, succesfull dancer , boxer or musician - or travelling through space battling species on planets they never heard of.
Come to think of it, one wonders why are people willing to look at movies like Dunkirk? It isn't all singing and dancing, is it? Maybe seeing the misery makes the viewers feel better, as compared to that, their life isn't too bad after all? Psychologists can surely tell, and I am sure they are employed by Hollywood movie producers. Meanwhile, we must count ourselves lucky with producers and directors being willing and able to make war movies!

H.

[Mike K]

I can highly recommend the 4 part BBC doco series, FINEST HOUR made in the 1990's , it details the 1940 battles very well with first hand interviews with veterans .

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Finest-Hour-DVD/dp/B000JLTE98

I recall they interviewed an ex-British armoured regiment recce officer. His comments were something like this.

Here is 21 year old me leading the whole regiment to where the German armoured columns were advancing. Within ten minutes our regiment ( equipped with Matilda 1 tanks ) was almost completely decimated . My tank managed to escape , at night we crept into a German column of transport, our black berets looked similar to the German tankers berets ! We actually rammed the truck in front of us accidently and a tirade of German swear words came on.

After abandoning the tank, he and his driver attempted to swim a river but the driver drowned . The doco makers go to an abandoned villa where the pair tried to rest , here is where the driver carved his name into a wall and its still there today.

They also interview a British corporal, who was in charge of a mortar platoon behind the Dunkirk beaches , this chap describes how a mixup in orders had his men send a a mortar barrage over onto their own chaps , which caused mortal casualties.