INTRODUCTION

This is Dunkirk in the north of France. On the 2nd May 1940, hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops were massed here on this beach, surrounded by enemy forces.
Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea, they faced an impossible situation as the enemy closed in.
There was action everywhere as the story unfolded on land, sea and air. RAF Spitfires engaged the enemy in the skies above the Channel, desperately trying to protect the defenceless men below.

Meanwhile, 33 kms away across the English Channel at Dover, hundreds of small boats manned by both military and civilians were mounting a desperate rescue effort, risking their lives in a race against time to save even a fraction of their army. Join me as we explore the remarkable story of the Dunkirk evacuation; the terrifying events that led up to it and the providential events that made it possible.

THE RESCUE

In late May 1940, a convoy of small boats sailed from Dover across the English Channel towards France. It was a dangerous crossing to make, and the sailors were apprehensive as they thought about what lay ahead.

They crossed the channel without incident and drew up to the beaches at Dunkirk along the French coast. The sight that greeted them was one that they had not expected. The beaches were covered from one end to another with a dark, moving mass of humanity.

All along the shoreline thousands of soldiers thronged the beaches, jostling, moving, ducking for cover. Behind them, towards the town, columns of smoke spiralled into the skies, signalling the destruction that had swept through Dunkirk.

In the distance was the crack of machine gun fire and the roar of artillery, as the soldiers defending the perimeter around Dunkirk and the beaches returned enemy fire. The Dunkirk harbour had been all but destroyed by German Luftwaffe bombers, which meant that sailing vessels could not berth there.

When the soldiers on the beach saw the approaching vessels, they began to wade out into the ocean, queueing up to their chests in water, waiting for the vessels to get close enough so they could board.

The sailors took their boats as close to the shore as they dared, and shut down the engines. Immediately a mass of soldiers surged forward, scrambling to get on board the vessels, nearly capsizing them in their haste and desperation.

As the soldiers crowded on to the boats, the sailors tried to establish some semblance of order and regain control of their vessels. Before long the low hum of dozens of engines filled the air and the little boats plunged out into the open waters towards England.

But before they could get very far they heard the low whining drone of German bombers circling overhead. Suddenly chaos reigned around them as they were peppered with machine gun fire, and bombs whizzing past them and pelting the ocean.

The soldiers on board hefted their rifles to their shoulders and began returning fire. It was a desperate tussle for survival. The Germans were determined to prevent the British from escaping, and the British were determined to survive.

Some soldiers were pummelled by the unending rain of bullets, while others managed to evade the firestorm and survive. When they finally reached Dover, the boats queued up at the harbour and thousands of soldiers streamed from the vessels.

They had evaded machine gun fire, bombs and mines strewn across the ocean floor to get to safety. These vessels were among hundreds of other Little Ships; civilian vessels that had volunteered their services for the largest evacuation in military history.

They were at the heart of what is now known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or Operation Dynamo; a daring military operation launched by the Royal Navy in an attempt to evacuate the British Expeditionary Forces who were trapped in France at the height of World War II.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it a miracle of deliverance, and indeed it was just that, because amid almost relentless enemy attack and near impossible conditions, over 300,000 men were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk and taken across the channel, safely to Dover in England.

GERMANY ON THE MARCH

Barely nine months earlier, on the 1st September 1939, Germany had invaded Poland, kicking off World War II. Hitler’s aggressive military agenda set the rest of Europe on edge. Since 1936 Hitler had been acquiring territory, beginning with the re-occupation of the Rhineland district of Germany.

After the successful occupation of the Rhineland, Hitler pushed further afield, seizing Austria and then Czechoslovakia by 1939.

By early 1939, Hitler had set his sights on Poland, and by this time France and Great Britain were becoming nervous. They saw that Hitler’s ambitions could not be tempered, and immediately moved to curb him.

In March 1939 Great Britain declared that they would do everything in their power to ensure that Poland remained independent, pledging military assistance for any German advances. France soon allied itself with Britain, and pledged its support for Poland as well.

Undaunted by this, Hitler signed a nonaggression treaty with the Soviet Union, and on the 1st of September 1939 invaded Poland. 

Tensions were already running high in Europe, and Hitler’s invasion of Poland was the final straw that set-in motion a chain of events that kickstarted World War II. At 9am on the 3rd of September 1939, the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Neville Henderson, delivered an ultimatum to the Nazis.

BRITAIN AT WAR

The Germans were asked to cease their hostilities by 11am that morning. If they failed to do so, they were told that Britain would be at war with Germany. Hitler refused to respond, and by 11:15am on the 3rd of September 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that Britain was officially at war with Germany.

Shortly after the Prime Minister’s announcement, the air raid sirens in London began to wail mournfully over the stunned city. It was only a drill, but it brought home the chilling reality that England was now at war, and the grim uncertainty of wartime settled over the whole nation.

Shortly after the British had declared war on the Germans the French had issued a similar announcement, allying themselves with their neighbours across the channel. The French were prepared to go to war in much the same way they had during World War I, using their famous Maginot Line as an almost impregnable defence.

The Maginot line is a series of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapons installations built along the French side of the borders they share with Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg. 

THE BLITZKRIEG

But Hitler chose a military strategy that blindsided the allies. First, he invaded Norway and Denmark in April of 1940. Then, a month later, on the 10th of May 1940, he launched his first Blitzkrieg against the Netherlands and Belgium.

The sudden and swift attack left the allied troops dazed and reeling. Thousands of refugees flooded the roads, fleeing the approaching German front. German dive bombers crowded the skies, unleashing a hail of machine gun fire and bombs on unprepared targets.

In the ensuing chaos the allied forces mounted the best defence they could muster, but their efforts did little to stave off the advancing German military machine. 

The Germans completely ignored the mighty Maginot Line and instead carved a path into France through Luxembourg and the Ardennes Forest. Hitler’s tanks then turned and pushed towards the sea, reaching the English Channel and isolating the Allied armies in the north.

They turned again, pushing north and securing more coastal ports along the way, until the Allied forces, in particular the British Expeditionary Forces, found themselves increasingly trapped with little hope of survival.

Then, just as everything seemed to be slowly caving in around them, the German high command called for its army to halt their advance. It seemed like a miracle and the Allied forces seized the opportunity without hesitation.

During the providential reprieve, which lasted 48 hours, the commander of the British Expeditionary Forces, Lord Gort, directed his commanders to fall back to Dunkirk where they were to await evacuation. 

The mission seemed impossible. In order to arrive at Dunkirk the British Expeditionary Force would have to fight their way through enemy lines and hold the town against formidable German attack.

And not only that, they would need to hold it long enough for the ships to arrive from England and ferry out the thousands of soldiers who made up the British Expeditionary Force. By the time the evacuation was set in motion there were over 333,000 troops trapped on the beaches around Dunkirk waiting for a ride home.

The evacuation was code named Operation Dynamo and was carried out by the Royal Navy under the command of Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay and a small team of men.
Ramsay chose Dover Castle as his base of operations, and began making arrangements for the evacuation, on the 19th of May 1940.

When the Allied forces arrived in Dunkirk, one of the first things they did was set up a perimeter of defence to hold off German attacks. But this didn’t stop the Luftwaffe from deploying Stukas or dive bombers to fly over the town.

As thousands of soldiers streamed into the abandoned streets of Dunkirk, a pall of smoke hung over them and piles of rubble littered the streets. Many soldiers retreated into the basements of buildings in an attempt to take cover, while others huddled on beaches.

The soldiers on the beaches were particularly vulnerable to the constant aerial bombing and shelling unleashed by the Germans. The men were like sitting ducks, being picked off indiscriminately by the near constant Luftwaffe machine gun fire.

The German bombers paid special attention to bombing the harbour at Dunkirk. They rendered it unfit for use, and the British Forces had to figure out another location to stage the evacuation. They set their sights on the eastern Mole at Dunkirk.

A mole, derived from the French word mole, refers to massive structures made of wood, concrete or stone to act as breakwaters around harbours. The British quickly decided to use the eastern mole as a main point of evacuation.

OPERATION DYNAMO

Just a few minutes before 7pm on the evening of the 26th of May, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force began with a short message declaring “Operation Dynamo is to commence”

The first ship to sail for England was the Isle of Man steam packet Mona’s Isle. The boat embarked with 1,420 troops from Dunkirk. As it was navigating the channel towards Dover artillery was fired from the shore at Gravelines, and dive bombers launched an aerial assault.

Twenty-three men were killed on that first trip across the narrow seas, and this would set the tone for the entire evacuation effort in the uncertain and tenuous days that followed.
Mona’s Isle arrived in Dover around noon on the 27th of May, and disembarked its cargo of weary but grateful soldiers.

At the beginning of Operation Dynamo, British expectations for evacuation were low. There were so many nearly insurmountable logistical problems, not to mention the fact that the Allies were trapped in a small sliver of territory fighting against much stronger forces.

It would take a miracle to evacuate them all to safety. But the British continued with their efforts undaunted, determined to save as many men as they were able to save. By the 27th of May, the British Commanders at Dunkirk radioed Dover Castle asking for every available ship to be sent to Dunkirk to aid the evacuation efforts.

Soldiers found themselves queueing on the beaches waiting for small passenger boats to approach as near the shore as they dared. Others queued on the mole waiting to board ships that managed to berth there.

As part of the evacuation process, smaller vessels would ferry boatloads of soldiers out into the open ocean where massive Royal Navy destroyers waited, anchored in deep water. Soldiers were offloaded onto the destroyers, and then the smaller vessel would head back towards the shore to pick up more men.

But the Germans were determined to destroy the British Forces, and in addition to the aerial bombing the Luftwaffe began to lay sea mines, dropping them into the water along the course that the British ships were navigating.

The soldiers struggled during their time on the beaches. All around them was the continuous pop of machine-gun fire and the dull thud and roar of falling bombs. They watched as their brothers in arms died around them, or as a boat, filled with soldiers sank under enemy fire, drowning all the men on board.

Yet, despite all this horror, whenever the men saw a boat approaching the shore, they waded out into the water, rushing towards it as though it was their only lifeline, their only sliver of hope in a world gone mad – looking increasingly like hell on earth.

By Sunday June 2nd, there were only about eleven thousand men remaining in Dunkirk. Many of these were on the beaches, but some were hiding in the town, while others were defending the perimeter. Those defending the perimeter would take time to withdraw, and time was running out fast!

With the German tanks and troops nearly on top of them, the British commanders on the ground at Dunkirk realised that they would need to deploy a massive flotilla of vessels to evacuate the remaining men in a single swoop.

Back at Dover, Admiral Ramsay realised that they would need to evacuate the remaining men within the space of 12 hours, or else they would risk losing them as Prisoners of War to the advancing German line.

Ramsay immediately sent out a call to every available Royal Navy Destroyer and Minesweeper, telling them that the final evacuation was to take place on the night of the 2nd of June, and that all available Navy ships were to report to Dover as soon as possible.

At 5pm that evening a massive armada of Royal Navy ships moved silently out of Dover headed towards Dunkirk. The vessels reached Dunkirk at 6:45pm and began boarding large numbers of eager soldiers.

Just after 11:30pm British commanders on the ground signaled Dover that the last of the British Expeditionary Forces had been evacuated and they themselves boarded Navy vessels for Dover. The evacuation efforts continued however, in an attempt to evacuate as many French soldiers as possible.

SAFELY HOME

The last ships to depart Dunkirk left at 3am on the 4th of June, having evacuated 20,000 French soldiers that night. By then the Germans were only 5 kilometres away and 12,000 French troops remained stranded at Dunkirk to be taken as Prisoners of War. At 2:23pm on Tuesday the 4th of June 1940, Operation Dynamo was terminated.

Altogether the Royal Navy evacuated 338,000 troops, which was almost the entire British Expeditionary Force. Of the 933 ships that were deployed to help with the evacuation, 236 were destroyed by German firepower. The evacuation of Dunkirk was followed closely by the surrender of
France to Germany about three weeks later, leaving Britain isolated and vulnerable to the threat of imminent invasion by Hitler’s forces.

The British Expeditionary Force had abandoned or destroyed nearly all of their heavy equipment in Dunkirk, and millions of pounds worth of equipment had literally gone up in smoke. Hitler declared the evacuation a victory for Germany, but Britain had an entirely different view of the matter!

By rescuing the bulk of its army, the British felt that they had gained an important, albeit temporary victory. They had lived to fight another day, and Britain was still independent of Nazi aggression, unlike many other nations on the continent.

Had Operation Dynamo failed, and the British troops been killed or taken prisoner the whole war would have taken a different course and we would be narrating a different historical story now. The evacuation of Dunkirk was a critical moment for Britain and the Allied Forces at the outset of World War II.

Speaking of the evacuation on the 4th of June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to the entire episode as a miracle. The evacuation boosted public morale, and was thereafter referred to as the Miracle of Dunkirk.

ANOTHER RESCUE

The Miracle of Dunkirk and the nightmarish conditions the soldiers endured, remind us of another war being fought all around us at this very moment. The Bible refers to it as a cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil.

A conflict that began in heaven and then spilled out onto our tiny planet, wrapping this pale blue dot we call home in a constant fog of heartbreak and fear. Because of the great conflict between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, we find ourselves much like the soldiers on the beaches at Dunkirk.

Pummelled by the constant thud and roar of catastrophe and calamity, we need only read the news today to realise just how much our world is reminiscent of a war zone. Fires blazing mercilessly throughout the drought-ridden coasts of Australia, and other countries of the world.

Millions of refugees fleeing conflict zones all over the world, risking their lives as they undertake dangerous voyages across rough seas. Thousands impacted by the Corona virus. The sharp increase in crime and violence in society. The pain and heartbreak that accompany a rising tide of mental and emotional illness. The list goes on and on and on.
And sometimes it might be easy to feel we too are soldiers, stranded forlornly on a crowded beach waiting desperately for some glimmer of hope on the horizon.

And perhaps that is one of the keys to the story of Dunkirk? It is a story of hope! When those beleaguered soldiers spotted the ships bobbing on the horizon their hearts lifted with hope. Hope of survival, hope of life, hope for a future with their loved ones.

In the midst of the strife and conflicts of life that we face today as a global community, Jesus offers us hope on the horizon. Jesus himself tells us in John 14:1-3:

“Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me…I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Jesus is preparing the greatest rescue operation ever known to mankind. It is a rescue operation that is geared towards saving millions of stranded survivors, languishing on the shores of human hopelessness and grief. Millions of stranded survivors longing for something this world cannot offer; a peace and hope that seems just beyond our reach.

Jesus promises us that if we reach out and grasp his hand, he will hold on to us and evacuate us from this far-flung shore. He will take us by the hand and lead us safely home. When you look around you at the mounting chaos and turmoil in this world, do you long for peace?

Do you long for hope? Do you long for something better? Jesus is waiting for you to open your heart to him, to let him into your life. He has promised us that he is coming soon. Coming to rescue us. To evacuate us to a brighter shore, a better place. The Bible tells us this:

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 22:4

Jesus offers you and I a future full of hope. A future free from pain, suffering and death. And a future that is filled with the promise of eternal life!

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FAREWELL  PRAYER

Be sure to join us again next week, when we will share another of life’s journeys together. Until then, I invite you to join me as we pray.

Dear Heavenly Father. Our hearts are troubled when we see the strife and turmoil in our world today. Please grant us the peace that you offer and lead us to a place where our hearts can find hope and peace. Thank you for rescuing us, and for the gift of eternal life. We want to reach out and accept your offer. And we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.