At the end of the Battle Of Dunkirk, World War 2, the British Navy planned "Operation Dynamo", This operation, was the evacuation of Allied Troops ( Belgian, British, and French), from Dunkirk, France. The troops had became cut off and surrounded by the Nazis during the Battle Of France. "Operation Dynamo" ran between 26 May and 4 June 1940.

The British had began planning the evacuation effort on the 20th of May, without the knowledge of the French.

The effort involved, the Royal British Navy, Merchant Navy, Allied Naval Vessels, and Civilian Vessels. These vessels gathered in Dover preparing for the evacuation, which would begin in the coming days.

There were three possible evacuation routes to choose from:

Route X - The safest from shore batteries, but went through a heavily mined portion of the channel, this route had a travel distance of  55 nautical miles (102 km).

Route Y - The longest at 87 nautical miles (161 km) with 4 hours of extra sailing time, ships going along this route were likely to be attacked by German surface vessels, submarines, and the Luftwaffe.

Route Z -  The shortest at 39 nautical miles (72 km), but required staying close to the French coast, leaving ships     open to attacks from the shore.

(Map of routes below)

26th-27th of May: The operation began at 7pm after Churchill gave the order, by which time 28,000 men had already evacuated. The conditions were chaotic, vehicles and debris blocked the roads and troops were under heavy fire, there was also a flood of refugees coming from the other direction, displaced by the war. On the 27th, the first full day of Operation Dynamo, the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Dunkirk, cutting water supplies and starting fires, killing an estimated 1000 civilians, on third of the remain population. Due to the war-time censorship, in an attempt to keep up the British morale, the full extent of the evacuation was not know to the public till after the war. King George VI attended a service on the 26th, which was to become a national day of prayer. The Archbishop of Canterbury led prayers, "for our soldiers in dire peril in France". The original plan for this period was to evacuate 45,000 men, during this period, although only 25,000 managed to be evacuated.

28th May-4th June: The Belgian Army Surrendered to the Nazi's on the 28th of May, this left a large area east of Dunkirk open to attack by the Germans. Several divisions of the British Army, were sent to cover the area from attacks. By May 30th all divisions were behind defensive lines, the British troops were joined by more than half of the First French Army. The perimeter of the area occupied by allied forces ran along a series of canals 7 miles (11 km) from the coast, the area was marshy and not suitable for tanks. At first William Tennant a senior naval officer Captain, ordered the troops to evacuate via the beaches, as the harbour was rendered unusable due to German bombing. When this proved too slow, he redirected the troops to two long stone and concrete breakwaters, called the East and West Mole, as well as keeping some going via the beaches. During this period 312,753 British and Allied troops were evacuated and on the 4th of June the remaining 40,000 French Rearguard troops surrounded, On this day Churchill also made his famous "we shall fight on the beaches" speech. 

Although Operation Dynamo was largely a success with a total of 338,226 troops managing to get evacuated out of Dunkirk, there were also heavy loses of troops, equipment, aircraft and ships. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) lost 68,000 soldiers (dead, wounded, missing, or captured), for every 7 men that were evacuated 1 would be left to become a German Prisoner Of  War (POW). All heavy equipment was abandoned (2,472 guns, 20,000 motorcycles, and almost 65,000 other vehicles), food, fuel and ammunition were also left in France. Six British and three French destroyers were sunk, along with nine other major vessels, with over 200 Allied vessels sunk. Also lost were 145 Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft.

After the evacuation, many tired and battered British and Allied troops were sent from their camps in Britain, back to the war, into many parts of France, and other fronts of the war. Since their defeat in Dunkirk, the morale was low, many of the troops only wanted one thing, to return home to their families.

Background image supplied by: HistoryFollower

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation
2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281854/Dunkirk-Little-ships-set-sail-France-mark-70th-anniversary-Operation-Dynamo.html
3. http://historyfollower.com/the-evacuation-of-dunkirk/

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