Dunkirk and the Little Ships

During 1940 the German army swept with devastating speed across the Low Countries and into northern France and drove Allied forces back into a small pocket around Dunkirk.

Without a swift withdrawal across the English Channel, the latter faced certain death or capture. The evacuation plan – Operation Dynamo – initially calculated that 45,000 men might be rescued, but between 26 May and 4 June 338,226 men were in fact brought back to England. Naval historian Philip Weir shows how this was mad...