Huge Sebag - Montefiore - Dunkirk - Fight to the Last Man

PENGUIN BOOKS

DUNKIRK

For readable wartime history, you cant just leave it to Holmes and
Beevor Observer

Sebag-Montefiore has added significantly to our knowledge a
marvellous tribute to these men who helped create a legend
John Crossland, Sunday Times

The author has brought together scores of personal accounts to
impressive, moving effect Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph

Sebag-Montefiore is at his best with set pieces such as the
massacres at Wormhout, Vinkt and Le Paradis, his description of the
capture of Eben Emael or the Mechelen Incident. He writes crisply
and the series of small-scale actions are related with considerable
verve. A fine book immaculately researched, well written, and has
much in the way of pathos and human interest BBC History

Sebag-Montefiore brings a wealth of fresh revelation and detail to this
most familiar tale. By the time he is done, the evacuation of Dunkirk
seems more miraculous still Tim Gardam, The Times

The use of anecdote to tell the story and the authors gift for
characterization help move the plot along quickly; this is an eminently
readable book Simon Heffer, Literary Review

Absorbing helps put the record straight Scotsman

Is there anything left to say about the big subjects of World War 2?
Yes, provided you give enough time and effort as proved by
Hugh Sebag-Montefiore Liverpool Daily Post

This weighty tome is masterly and scholarly, yet its fast, clear pace
makes this definitive work highly readable Leicester Mercury

It amounts not just to a prodigiously thorough tribute to the
forgotten heroes, but to a landmark work which will take its place
among the best examples of serious yet compellingly written military
history Soldier

Many historians have written about Dunkirk, and others (including
myself) about the earlier war in France, in 1940. But nobody has done
such a masterly job of telling the whole story as Hugh
Sebag-Montefiore. He brought much new material to light, not least
the unsung heroism of the French forces that guarded the approaches
to Dunkirk so desperately in May 1940, without which the BEF
would never have been able to escape Sir Alistair Horne

A first-rate panoramic history, and highly affecting worms-eye
account, of Britains absolutely all-time favourite disaster The
particular brilliance of this book lies in the manner in which
Sebag-Montefiore interleaves the military with the political
Christopher Hitchens, New York Times

In his compelling new study Sebag-Montefiore focuses unerringly on the
front line, presenting violence on the field of battle as vivid,
harrowing, horrific, ubiquitous Washington Post

Well-judged and fascinating the definitive account of Dunkirk.
While explaining overall strategy, Sebag-Montefiore has expertly
interwoven individual tales of heroism and occasional cowardice
New York Sun

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore was a barrister before becoming a journalist and then an author. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Observer, the Independent on Sunday and the Mail on Sunday. His bestselling book Enigma: The Battle for the Code describes how the Polish, French and British cryptographers cracked the German Enigma code. In his quest to find the truth about Dunkirk he has travelled extensively within Europe. In the process he has discovered interesting facts about his own family: two relations were evacuated from the Dunkirk beaches. He lives in North London with his wife and three children.

Fight to the Last Man

HUGH SEBAG-MONTEFIORE

PENGUIN BOOKS

For Aviva Burnstock, my wife,
and for Saul, Esther and Abraham, my children

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by Viking 2006
Published in Penguin Books 2007

Copyright Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, 2006
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to
the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Contents

All photographs other than those from archives open to the public and agencies were printed from originals by Steve Aldridge at Sky Imaging (UK) Limited, London. The picture source is given in brackets. An asterisk (*) indicates that the inset shows just a portion of the original photograph.

Inside front and back cover: La Panne beach scene after the evacuation (Getty Images/Time and Life/photographer Hugo Jaeger)

Section 1

Colonel Hans Oster (supplied by his daughter Barbara)

Major Gijsbertus Sas (de Spiegel/Spaarnestad Fotoarchief, Haarlem, Holland)

Osters and Sas children (Osters daughter Barbara)

Erich Hoenmanns (his family)

Hoenmanns crashed plane (Jeroen Huygelier, archivist at Centre de Documentation Historique, Brussels)

Colonel Georges Goethals and Vicomte Davignon (Le Soir, Brussels)

Hore-Belisha on the Gort Line (Imperial War Museum [IWM])*

Churchill with French and British generals (tablissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la dfense [ECPAD/France])

French generals (ECPAD/France)

Belgians surrender at Veldwezelt bridge (Martina Caspers, archivist at Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv, Koblenz [Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv])

Aerial view of Albert Canal bridge (Flight Lieutenant Mary Hudson at the Ministry of Defence Air Historical Branch [Air Historical Branch])

German armour crosses Veldwezelt bridge (Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv)

A Fairey Battle bomber in France (Air Historical Branch)

Dick Marlands burning plane (Air Historical Branch and Michael Pitt)

Dick Marland (his daughter Margaret)

Tom Gray (IWM)*

Generals Corap and Brooke, November 1939 parade (ECPAD/France)

Weir at Houx, Belgium (Peter Taghon [Taghon])

French B1 bis tank (IWM)*

Bridge over Meuse near Dinant (Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv)

General Heinz Guderian (Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv)

Museum, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, Norwich [Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum])

British light tanks advance through Belgium (IWM)*

French Somua S-35 tank (IWM)*