As Hitler’s forces advanced rapidly through Western Europe after the end of the so-called ‘Phoney War’ which began in 1939, they pushed Allied troops ever closer towards the coast. The British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), alongside allied troops from France, faced the threat of encirclement and destruction at Dunkirk – a coastal town in northern France, 10 kilometres from the Belgian border. This was very early in World War Two and only weeks after the Wehrmacht had turned its attention to the countries of Western Europe. Consequently, the British government had to act quickly to avoid a debilitating, not to mention humiliating, defeat in 1940. This they did with Operation Dynamo – the plan to evacuate Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, and return them to Britain. Almost 340,000 troops were successfully evacuated during the months of May and June 1940, yet there is still much debate about whether this evacuation represented a defeat so early in the war, or a triumph – allowing Britain to ‘fight another day’.
In this episode, Elliott (@thelibrarian6) argues that Dunkirk was a military defeat for the British, while Patrick (@historychappy) argues that it was actually a very lucky escape for the British.
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