Dunkerque Bloody Dunkerque - rewritten...
Dunkerque Bloody Dunkerque
There goes the siren that warns of the air raid
Then comes the sound of the guns sending flak
Out for the scramble we’ve got to get airborne
Got to get up for the coming attack.
Jump in the cockpit and start up the engines
Remove all the wheelblocks there’s no time to waste
Gathering speed as we head down the runway
Gotta get airborne before it’s too late.
Running, scrambling, flying
Rolling, turning, diving, going in again
Run, live to fly, fly to live, do or die
Run, live to fly, fly to live. aces high.
- Iron Maiden, Aces High.
You can’t take back, that one mistake
That still lives on after life it takes
In that one day, that changed our lives
And bitter memories are left behind.
- The Offspring, The End of the Line.
After the rapid and impressive advances by the German Wehrmacht in the opening stages of Opeartion Hermann, the French government found itself forced to flee Paris and soon initiated armistice-negotiations. Meanwhile the French ground forces in central and southern France continued to resist along with the French 1. Army around Lille, that basically were caught alongside the British Expeditionary Force in the Dunkerque Pocket in Northwestern France - the last remnant of the Allied forces in Belgium had either given up or been pushed south into France by General Paul Hausser’s German 6th Army in mid-May.
There was one bright spot seen from London, though, and that was Royal Tank Regiment performance against General Walther Model’s Panzer forces near Arras. For some time it seemed like the Royal Tankers and infantry troops from the Durham Light would stop the Germans and reverse the tides of war (at least in that area) for the time being. The British Matilda’s seemed superior to anything the Germans had, which led to some later misconceptions regarding the value of the Matilda tank. Fast and deceisive action by the Luftwaffe’s cannon armed Stuka’s and some of the increasingly popular and called for Panzerknacker’s quickly put out that last glimmer of hope. Left on the Arras-battlefield was some 70 burning British tanks and numerous armoured personel carriers along with lorries and heapes of dead men. General Model later decorated several men from the ground-to-air liasion command, who had put themselves in the thick of battle to vector in close air support. The actions of said men, and Luftwaffe FlaK crews – calmly having turned their deadly 88mm AA guns at the onrushing British tanks -, did much to create an unbreakable bond between the Heer and Luftwaffe – as later seen in the Eastern War.
The catastrophical Battle of Arras and the campaign in France in general finally led to the Chamberlain governments downfall as Labour, the Conservatives, Eden’s War Party and Lord Halifax’s Oldguard Tories, and the Liberals, led by the Chamberlain-critical Clement Davies, found the present PM wanting to say the very least. Precious time was lost while Atlee, Bevin, Eden and Halifax-supporters in the House of Commons tried to find a new compromise candidate fro PM. For some time Eden hoped to be the man, as did Labours’ Clement Atlee, but after nearly a week of at times quite heathed debate, Lord Halifax – having the King’s backing – emerged as the new Prime Minister.
Once at the helm, Lord Halifax found the situation on the continent to be worse than expected – the French 1. Army, and the BEF itself, were being hammred and it was only a question of time before the German Heer along with the Luftwaffe and the few Kriegsmarine units involved drove the Allied Forces into the ever shrinking Dunkerque Pocket – the French 1.Army had finally been dislodged from Lille and was now being routed towards Dunkerque. There was no question that the Germans would sooner or later drive the BEF and its French allies into the sea, or more likely force them to surrender. Halifax therefore ordered the implementation of General John Gort’s Operation Dynamo, a plan to evacuate of troops and equipment from Dunkerque.
The situation became even worse when General Sir Edmund Ironside, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff – CIGS – was shot down on his way to the Continent. General Ironside had wanted to brief General Gort, the BEF’s commander-in-chief, in person and get a first hand impression of the situation. PM Halifax blamed the RAF for not having provided sufficient escorts to CIGS’ flight, but in reality the flight of Me-109’s of JG 20 - led by yet another famous German ace, Staffelkapitän Walter Oesau -, had brushed the escorts aside and downed every single one of the Hawker Hurricanes along with Ironside’s transporter. The death of General Ironside would lead to some animosity between Number 10 and RAF’s Fighter Command, and more unfortunately to Halifax accepting Bomber Command’s proposal of City Bombing...
In the Dunkerque pocket, General Gort was in truly dire straites. His men were running out of supplies, especially the vital anti-tank and anti-aircraft ammunition, but also other essentials such as food and fuel. The Germans seeming hell-bent on conquering Dunkerque just kept coming. From the south the XIXth Panzer Korps under General Heinz Guderian – the overall German Panzer commander in person – battled its way with the usual haste along the Channel coast from Abbeville towards Boulogne, Calais and ultimately Dunkirk. Moving south from Belgium, the German 6th Army continued its advanced as well, but was slowed down because of its lack of armour and motor transport – the infantry, however, moved forward with typical determination and was within artillery range of Dunkerque on the 28th of May.
The only thing keeping the Germans from overrunning the Dunkerque Pocket was ironically the French 1. Army, that had regrouped and now stubbornly stood its ground first behind the River Lys, and later behind the Yser as German forces outflanked their postitions. Several occasions of helicopter-scare, however, nearly sent the French troops retreating, but younger officers now held command in the 1. Army and proved to the world that the French could still fight and fight hard. The French resistance would be to no awail, though, as the British – even troops being repatriated from German POW-camps after the war - blamed the French, along with the Americans and Soviets, for their defeats.
Admiral Bertram Ramsay, who was in charge of Operation Dynamo, planned on using a combination of destroyers, transports and civilian vessels to evacuate BEF-troops via Dunkerques fine, but rather small habour. However, the harbour soon became unusable due to sunken and wrecked ships as Luftwaffe and the KLK pressed home their attacks again and again, while more and more Heer artillery were brought forth to take part in the mayhem. Admiral Ramsay therefore shifted focus to the nearby beaches and begun to evacuate troops from them instead. This had one serious side-effect – the beaches were not sheltered in any way, nor protected from air attack. Even though several AA guns were being placed and the ships themselves had been issued with more anti-aircraft guns – due to Churchill’s foresight -, the beaches soon turned into a regular slaughter house – the shallow water turning a rather omnious red colour – as low flying German fighters and the deadly Hs-129 straffed everything and anything that moved.
As part of the German attempt to prevent the escaped of the BEF and the Frecnh 1. Army, German planes begin to mine the Thames Estuary and Channel sea lanes as well as bombing British Channel ports. As the first British civilian bomb casualties are reported, the RAF attacks Rotterdam's refineries and tries to interdict the German Heer’s movements as well as Luftwaffe’s infrastructure, but once more find their light bombers no match for the superbly led and controlled Luftwaffe. The German attacks on British ports, however, prompt Halifax to give RAF’s Bomber Command the final go ahead on their City Bombing-scheme. Within a fourtnight waves of Short Sterlings and the new Manchester heavy bomber will begin to bomb German cities without any regard to civilian casualties.
Between 26th of May and 2nd of June, 1940, the Royal Navy tried its best to bring back as many British troops as possible. Their task was doomed from day one, however, as the Germans dominated the sky above Dunkerque completely and extensive mining operation forced the Britsih ships to use only three approaches - X, Y and Z - as well as running at reduced speed. Still, the gallant sailors carried on with suicidal recklessness and bravery.
A typical example of the near chaos in those dark days are the sinking of the British destroyers HMS Wakeful, Grafton and Comfort on the 29th of May. HMS Wakeful was hit and sunk by a torpedo from the German Schnell-boot, S30. HMS Grafton, which was nearby, tried to rescue the sailors from HMS Wakeful, but is itself hit by another torpedo from S30. As HMS Grafton begin to sink, yet another British destroyer, HMS Comfort, moves up to help, but HMS Grafton opens fire on her in the mistaken belief that she’s a German ship. The dying HMS Grafton actually sinks the Comfort! 25 other vessels are also sunk by Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine air crafts near Dunkirk on this day.
The losses around Dunkerque are not the only serious losses suffered by the Royal Navy in May. Patrolling near Iceland, the British battleship, HMS Warspite, is engaged by a German U-boot, U-46, and damaged extensively. HMS Warspite is later sunk by a flight of KLK FW-200 Condors flying from the newly established KLK base at Narvik as it desperately tries to reach a safe port. One of the Condors are downed by anti-aircraft fire from Warspite and one of her destroyer escorts, while the two others are damaged. Condor pilots will, however, continue to make low-flying attacks on warships for the rest of the war as it is the only way to ensure a kill.
In the early morning of the 3rd of June, 1940, the three senior British Generals – Gort, Brooke and Montgomery - along with their grimfaced troops finally surrenders as German infantry heads into Dunkerque itself from both north and south.
All in all some 600 ships of all sorts – even civilian vessels -, participated in Opr.Dynamo, and some 200 were sunk by air attacks, mines or Schnell-boot attacks. Adding to that, the RN lost 18 destroyers – nearly half the number committed-, 12 transports and even 2 cruisers, that had tried to give fire support to the retreating ground troops. In the end, Royal Navy and civilian crafts brought some 25,000 men home from Dunkerque – it had been a devasting disaster.
The RAF, be it Bomber Command or Fighter Command, played litlle role in Opr. Dynamo as the Luftwaffe were able to intercept them either to the south or out over the Channel. Thus the catastrophe at Dunkerque further alienated RAF as both troops and sailors felt let down, to state it rather politely, by Fighter Command. Admiral Ramsay would later write an infamous book , Betrayed, where he solely lay blame for the Dunkerque disaster on the shoulders of RAF.
The French General Weygand, having seen the British abadoning, or trying to abandon, the French, resigned his position as did the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud. On the 5th of June, Phillip Petain, the hero of the Great War, took power and immediately and without further ado accepted German peace terms. Under the terms of the armistice, northern France and the regions north of Vichy – Petains seat of government - came under German occupation. Luftwaffe’s Construction Brigades soon swarmed over the place, building new airfields and enlarging older ones as thay had done in Norway and Denmark.
During the Battle for France nearly 2 million French soldiers were taken prisoner. An estimated 420,000 Allied soldiers, mostly French, were killed defending France whereas only some 35,000 German soldiers had lost their lives during the invasion.
The British and French, both politicians and military officers alike, had seriously underestimated the strength of the German arms, and had payed the ultimate price for it. France was utterly defeated and Britain, once more, stood alone against a Continental superpower.
