W.J.R. Gardner - The Evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May-June 1940

Series Editor: Capt. Christopher Page
ISSN: 1471-0757

Series Editor: Capt. Christopher Page
ISSN: 1471-0757

Naval Staff Histories were produced after the Second World War in order to provide as a full an account of the various actions and operations as was possible at the time. In some cases the Histories were based on earlier Battle Summaries written much sooner after the event, and designed to provide more immediate assessments. The target audience for these Naval Staff Histories was largely serving officers; some of the volumes were originally classified, not to restrict their distribution but to allow the writers to be as candid as possible. These histories have been in the Public Record Office for some time, and are here published for the first time.

The Evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May4 June 1940
Edited and with a preface by W. J. R. Gardner

Naval Operations of the Campaign in Norway, AprilJune 1940
Edited and with a preface by David Brown

Edited and with a Preface by

W. J. R. GARDNER

First published in 2000 in Great Britain by
Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2009

Website: www.routledge.com

Crown Copyright 2000

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May4
June 1940. (Naval staff histories)
1. Great Britain. Royal Navy History World War,
19391945 2. World War, 19391945 Naval operations,
British 3. Dunkerque (France), Battle of, 1940
I. Gardner, W. J. R.
940.545941

ISBN 0-7146-5120-6 (cloth)
ISBN 0-7146-8150-4 (paper)
ISSN 1471-0757

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May4 June 1940 / edited with a preface by W.J.R. Gardner.

p. cm. (Whitehall histories, Naval Staff histories)

Originally prepared by the Historical Section of the Admiralty in 1949 as Battle

Summary No. 41.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7146-5120-6 - ISBN 0-7146-8150-4 (pbk.)

1. Dunkerque (France), Battle of, 1940. 2. World War, 19391945 Naval operations,

British. I. Gardner, W. J. R. II. Great Britain. Admirality. Historical Section. III. Series.

D756.5.D8 E93 2000
940.5421428-dc21

00-031707

Published on behalf of the Whitehall History Publishing Consortium.

publication should be submitted in writing to: HMSO, Copyright Unit,

Typeset by Regent Typesetting

Publisher's Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

All photographs reproduced by permission of the Imperial War Museum, London

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the traumatic events of 1940, which saw the collapse of the Allied armies in France and the Low Countries and the subsequent evacuation of well over 300,000 servicemen from the Dunkirk area. The success of Operation Dynamo and the other, less-publicized, evacuations from various French ports enabled this country to retain the vital military skills and core competences upon which the British Army could base its plans for the recapture of the European mainland and the eventual defeat, in concert with our Allies, of the most formidable enemy.

The Royal Navy has a long-standing tradition of supporting our troops ashore and, when all else fails, of providing an escape route to allow them to fight again. However, the ability to undertake such operations depends on sea control: we were able to effect the withdrawal of our troops from Norway, France, Greece and Crete during the Second World War only because of the ability of the Royal Navy to command the seas within those theatres. By contrast, the loss of Singapore in early 1942 provides a stark lesson on the results of not having won sea control. And later in the war, it was precisely this ability to use the sea for our own purposes that enabled the Allies to launch the dozens of separate assaults which finally defeated the Japanese and German enemies.

Dunkirk was a major defeat, of that there is no doubt, and a costly exercise for the Royal Navy and the hundreds of small vessels which participated in the evacuation. More than 170 vessels were sunk and a further 50 damaged including 1 anti-aircraft cruiser, 23 destroyers and 13 minesweepers. These figures do not include large numbers of unnamed boats lost or damaged. But, as always in such circumstances, there was much that was praiseworthy: the brilliance of the improvised organization; the excellent inter-service cooperation, and the behaviour of the sailors and troops under the most demanding conditions.

All aspects of the operation, good and not so good, are comprehensively and frankly covered in this History. I am delighted that it is now available to the general public and whole-heartedly recommend it to casual and serious readers alike.

Ministry of Defence
March 2000

At the blackest point of the Second World War, the British people and the free world was saved not by the exertions of its armed forces but by a flotilla of small craft manned by amateur yachtsmen, fishermen and the like who spontaneously took themselves across the Channel in their own boats and rescued a whole army from the beaches of Dunkirk, thus thwarting the ambitions of an evil Axis

The above is not a literal quote but it does give a fairly good idea of the popular view of what happened at Dunkirk at the end of May and beginning of June 1940. Although not entirely untrue, the above statement has, it would be correct to say, taken on the status of a myth; a myth because it conveys neither an accurate nor a balanced account of the real achievement of evacuating a considerable body of troops under very difficult conditions. Clearly, from the angle of human interest, the mythical interpretation has an appeal which has accounted for its creation and perpetuation. But now, some 60 years after the event, it is time for less mythical and more factual material to become more clearly visible. There could be no better candidate for doing this than the Naval Staff History written in 1949 and bearing the prosaic heading of Battle Summary No. 41. This account was produced in that year by the Historical Section of the Admiralty (now the Naval Historical Branch of the Ministry of Defence), drew directly on contemporary reports and was originally intended for purely internal consumption, so it pulls few punches. Produced largely for naval use, it is mostly about seaborne operations but it does take account of what was happening on land, in both the events that led up to the necessity of evacuating the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from France and the more immediate movements on land in the Dunkirk area. Nor are air operations neglected where these are relevant.