Dunkirk

[Mike K]

I can highly recommend the 4 part BBC doco series, FINEST HOUR made in the 1990's , it details the 1940 battles very well with first hand interviews with veterans .

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Finest-Hour-DVD/dp/B000JLTE98

I recall they interviewed an ex-British armoured regiment recce officer. His comments were something like this.

Here is 21 year old me leading the whole regiment to where the German armoured columns were advancing. Within ten minutes our regiment ( equipped with Matilda 1 tanks ) was almost completely decimated . My tank managed to escape , at night we crept into a German column of transport, our black berets looked similar to the German tankers berets ! We actually rammed the truck in front of us accidently and a tirade of German swear words came on.

After abandoning the tank, he and his driver attempted to swim a river but the driver drowned . The doco makers go to an abandoned villa where the pair tried to rest , here is where the driver carved his name into a wall and its still there today.

They also interview a British corporal, who was in charge of a mortar platoon behind the Dunkirk beaches , this chap describes how a mixup in orders had his men send a a mortar barrage over onto their own chaps , which caused mortal casualties.

[chalky]

Afraid I didn't enjoy the movie , it really did need a back story to link it all together , soldiers don't fight in silence they have banter. Jumps around so much and is so loud I didn't know whether I was in a sinking ship or a crashing plane after an hour and wanted it to finish.
Best bit is the opening scene which really captures the fine line between life and death in war , but again just a bit of rubble and wreckage in the street would have made it so much better.

The Dunkirk scenes in the movie Atonement were much better done with real attention to detail even including building dozens of Morris CS8 replicas that were quite convincing. Not so sure about the casting tho!
Here's five minutes of the 20 min continuous Dunkirk shot-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QijbOCvunfU


Dunkirk a bit of a pet subject so rambling on-
All the theories about Hitler pausing to let Brits escape are hogwash IMHO.
Churchill and Admiral Ramsay in full possession of all the facts thought at best we would get no more than 30,000 away . No doubt the Germans thought they would be able to stop all but a handful by air bombardment ( and why would they continuously bomb the port if they wanted us to escape ? )
So there was no need to waste resources attacking trapped troops in a heavily defended town that would be needed to fight their way south across the rest of France .