Interview by Callum McKelvieWhat If...
In 1940 a vast rescue operation miraculously saved the majority of Britain’s
army, but what would failure have meant in the war against the Nazis?
B
etween 26 May and 4 June 1940,
a vast operation took place to rescue
thousands of British troops from
northern France. The Germans’ rapid
advance through the difficult and hilly
terrain of the Ardennes had outflanked
the British forces. Realising that
a continued attack would be hopeless,
the British launched Operation Dynamo,
a huge endeavour to rescue as many
troops as possible. The improvised
evacuation, involving hundreds of navy
and civilian vessels, was nothing short of
a miracle. It kept Britain in the war and
paved the way for the eventual defeat
of Nazi Germany. Yet the success of the
operation was on a knife-edge – how
might the future of both Britain and
WWII have looked had it failed?What happened leading up to the
evacuation of troops at Dunkirk?
Why was it necessary?
The British Expeditionary Force arrived
in France at the beginning of the war
and the expectation was that there
would be a confrontation. The Germans,
it was believed, would be attacking
through Belgium and, initially, the British
Expeditionary Force wasn’t allowed to
advance into Belgium – the Belgians were
remaining neutral because they didn’t
want to provoke the Germans. When the
German attack arrived, in May 1940, it
came in Belgium as expected, and the
British duly moved forward to the River
Dyle, where the two sides met. What
was expected was a standoff with twoarmies facing each other across a series
of trenches, much like the previous war.
But the Germans were simultaneously
mounting another attack further south.
They did not attack along the Maginot
Line, a series of heavily fortified defences
built along their border with France.
Instead, the Germans launched a daring
attack through the Ardennes, a hilly,
forested area that was not considered
ideal at all for tanks. The area was barely
defended and the Germans moved
quickly through it. By 20 May, German
tanks had reached the French coast. After
little more than a week, the Germans
had almost surrounded the British
Expeditionary Force.Can you explain the plan for
the Dunkirk evacuation?
Basically, there was no plan! It was never
anticipated that the army would need
rescuing. The evacuation was improvised
by Admiral Bertram Ramsay from Dover
Castle, where he could literally see across
to the French coast. The initial idea was
to bring soldiers back from Dunkirk
harbour. Ships would be sent directly into
the harbour but the Luftwaffe quickly
put it out of action. And this is where
improvisation reached its height. If you
can’t lift people from the harbour, what
can you do? Well, there’s the 10 miles of
shallow beaches stretching from France
into Belgium. In theory, people could beTHE DUNKIRK EVACUATION
HAD FAILED?
INTERVIEW WITH
JOSHUA
LEVINE
Joshua Levine
practised as a
barrister before
becoming an actor
and writer. He has
written several books
on the subject of
the two World Wars
and served as the
historical consultant
on the 2017 film
Dunkirk.RIGHT
Admiral Bertram
Ramsay (left),
who organised the
evacuation, watches
Allied aircraft over
the Normandy coast
in 1944 ©^ Alamy©^ GettyImagesMain^ image^sources:^ ©Alamy,^ ©^Getty^ Images