Battle of Dunkirk

May 27 to June 4, 1940

Also known as the Dunkirk Evacuation and Operation Dynamo

The Battle of Dunkirk was located just north of France in a place called Dunkerque. And across the English Channel.

Angie Thurston Mod 7/8

No actual fighting occurred, Dunkirk was an evacuation of the British troops caused by a German attempt to attack the British. The German‘s equipment was far superior to the French, British, and Belgian governments. So the British were forced to flee across the English channel.

Events Leading up to Dunkirk:

The border between France and Germany was defended by an series of forts on the Maginot Line. If Germany wanted to invade France it couldn't do it through there. England and France thought Germany would invade south through the Netherlands and Belgium. The British and French piled up against the Belgium border, waiting for the Germans. The German's waited until almost all the Allied armies had passed northward, then launched the real invasion south. As a result, the British and French armies were cut off, with the whole German army lying between them and France. The British were left trying to make their way back to the coast as best they could before they were destroyed by the Germans. Which lead them to the evacuation of Dunkirk.

The Germans failed to overwhelm the allies so a rescue plan was launched to save the hundreds of thousand soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk.

Not only large ships were used to rescue the troops, but also small privately owned ones.

About 338,000 soldiers were rescued.

Britain thought Dunkirk was a success because the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) evacuated most of the troops there. British soldiers that were rescued were then able to fight again. It gave the British and their Allies time to regroup, retrain, re-arm and go back and win the war. If the Germans had captured all the troops at Dunkirk, we might not have won the war.

Hitler thought it was a disaster because all those soldiers got away, and he didn’t successfully complete his blitzkrieg. But it was also a win for him because the British left behind tanks and guns that the German forces then captured.

WORKS CITED: http://www.harborheroes.org/dunkirk.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/kent/hi/people_and_places/

nature/newsid_8692000/8692901.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/765004.stm http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/dunkirk.htm http://www.dover-kent.co.uk/history/ww2b_dunkirk.htm http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/maginot_line.htm