70 years ago at 05.30 on 10 May 1940 Hitler launched a
massive
attack against
Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.
Britain and France had a defence pact and the British Expeditionary Force and the French Army
were driven back to the coast by the strength and speed of the German tanks. With Holland
and Belgium occupied there seemed no escape possible. Then came the miracle of Dunkirk, when
the Royal Navy and the armada of small boats lifted 338,000 soldiers back to the shores of England.
In Winston Churchill’s own words: “Our Army and 120,000 French troops were indeed rescued by
the British Navy from Dunkirk but only with the loss of their cannon, vehicles and modern equipment.
This loss inevitably took some weeks to repair, and in the first two of those
weeks the battle in France has been lost.”
Our outstanding photographs are sourced from our own collection and partner
agencies based in Austria, France, Germany, Russia and the USA.
Click here for Dunkirk
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