Dunkirk evacuation The Dunkirk evacuation , code - named Operation Dynamo , also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk , was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk , France , between 27 May and 4 June 1940 . The operation became necessary when large numbers of British , French , and Belgian troops were cut off and surrounded by the German army during the Battle of France in World War II . In a speech to the House of Commons , British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the events in France " a colossal military disaster " , saying that " the whole root and core and brain of the British Army " had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured . In his " We shall fight on the beaches " speech on 4 June , he hailed their rescue as a " miracle of deliverance " . After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 , the British Expeditionary Force ( BEF ) was sent to aid in the defence of France . Germany invaded Belgium and the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 , and three of their Panzer corps attacked France through the Ardennes and rapidly drove to the English Channel . By 21 May , the German forces had trapped the BEF , the remains of the Belgian forces , and three French armies in an area along the northern coast of France . Commander of the BEF General John Vereker , 6th Viscount Gort immediately saw that evacuation across the Channel was the best course of action , and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk , the closest location with good port facilities . A controversial Halt Order was issued with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler ' s approval on 24 May , which gave the trapped Allied forces time to construct defensive works and pull back large numbers of troops toward Dunkirk . From 28 – 31 May 1940 , in the Siege of Lille , the remaining 40 , 000 men of the once - formidable French First Army fought a delaying action against seven German divisions , including three armoured divisions . On the first day of the evacuation , only 7 , 669 men were evacuated , but by the ninth day a total of 338 , 226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily - assembled fleet of over 800 boats . Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour ' s protective mole onto 39 British destroyer s and other large ships , while others had to wade out from the beaches , waiting for hours in the shoulder - deep water . Some were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships by the famous little ships of Dunkirk , a flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats , fishing boat s , pleasure craft , and lifeboats called into service for the emergency . The BEF lost 68 , 000 soldiers during the French campaign and had to abandon nearly all of their tanks , vehicles , and other equipment . In his speech to the House of Commons on 4 June Churchill reminded the country that " we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory . Wars are not won by evacuations . " The events at Dunkirk remain a prominent folk memory in the United Kingdom . Background . In 1939 , after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany , the British sent troops – the British Expeditionary Force ( BEF ) – to aid in the defence of France , landing troops at Cherbourg , Nantes , and Saint - Nazaire . By May 1940 the force consisted of ten divisions in three corps under the command of General John Vereker , 6th Viscount Gort . Working with the BEF were the Belgian Army , the French First Army , the French Seventh Army , and the French Ninth Army . The initial plan for the German invasion of France called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium , thus avoiding the fixed defensive emplacements of the Maginot Line . However , Erich von Manstein , then Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A , felt the operation would fail to wipe out the enemy — as it did in the First World War — leading to only partial success and trench warfare . Manstein prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the OKH ( German High Command ) via his superior , " Generaloberst " ( Colonel General ) Gerd von Rundstedt . Manstein ' s plan suggested that Panzer divisions should attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes , where no one would expect them , then establish bridgehead s on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel . The Germans would thus cut off the Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders . This part of the plan later became known as the " Sichelschnitt " ( " sickle cut " ) . German dictator Adolf Hitler approved a modified version of Manstein ' s ideas , today known as the Manstein Plan , after meeting with him on 17 February . On 10 May , Germany attacked Belgium and the Netherlands . Army Group B , under " Generaloberst " Fedor von Bock , attacked into Belgium , while the three Panzer corps of Army Group B under Rundstedt swung around to the south and drove for the Channel . The BEF advanced from the Belgian border to positions along the River Dyle within Belgium , where they fought elements of Army Group B starting on 10 May . They were ordered to begin a fighting withdrawal to the Escaut River on the 14th when the Belgian and French positions on their flanks failed to hold . During a visit to Paris on 17 May , British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was astonished to learn from French General Maurice Gamelin , Commander in Chief of the French forces , that the French had committed all their troops to the ongoing engagements and had no strategic reserves . On 19 May , Gort met with French General Gaston Billotte , commander of the French First Army and overall coordinator of the Allied forces . Billotte revealed that the French had no troops between the Germans and the sea . Gort immediately saw that evacuation across the Channel was the best course of action , and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk , the closest location with good port facilities . Surrounded by marshes , Dunkirk boasted old fortifications and the longest sand beach in Europe , where large groups could assemble . After continued engagements and a failed Allied attempt on 21 May at Arras to cut through the German spearhead , the BEF was trapped , along with the remains of the Belgian forces and three French armies , in an area along the northern French coast . Planning and commencement of evacuation . Without telling the French , the British began planning on 20 May for Operation Dynamo , the evacuation of the BEF . Dynamo took its name from the dynamo room that provided electricity in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle . It was in this room that British Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay planned the operation and briefed Churchill as it was under way . Under the direction of Ramsay , ships began gathering at Dover for the evacuation . On 20 May the BEF sent Brigadier Gerald Whitfield to Dunkirk to start evacuating unnecessary personnel . Immediately overwhelmed by what he later described as " a somewhat alarming movement towards Dunkirk by both officers and men " , due to a shortage of food and water he had to send many along without thoroughly checking their credentials . Even officers ordered to stay behind to aid the evacuation disappeared onto the boats . On 22 May Churchill ordered that the BEF should attack southward in co - ordination with the French First Army under General Georges Blanchard to reconnect with the remainder of the French forces . This proposed action was dubbed the Weygand Plan after General Maxime Weygand , appointed Supreme Commander after Gamelin ' s dismissal on 18 May . On 25 May , Gort had to abandon any hope of achieving this objective , and on his own recognizance withdrew , along with Blanchard ' s forces , behind the Lys Canal , part of a canal system that reached the sea at Gravelines . Sluice gates had already been opened all along the canal to flood extra water into the system to create a barrier ( the " Canal Line " ) against the German advance . The retreat was undertaken amid chaotic conditions , with abandoned vehicles blocking the roads and a flood of refugees heading the opposite direction . Due to wartime censorship and the desire to keep up British morale , the full extent of the unfolding disaster at Dunkirk was not initially publicised . A special service attended by King George VI was held in Westminster Abbey on 26 May , declared a national day of prayer . Throughout the country , people prayed for the safety of the troops . The Archbishop of Canterbury led prayers " for our soldiers in dire peril in France " . Similar prayers were offered in synagogues and churches throughout the UK that day , confirming to the public their suspicion of the desperate plight of the troops . Just before 7 pm on 26 May Churchill ordered Dynamo to formally begin . By this point some 28 , 000 men had already departed by sea . Initial plans called for the recovery of 45 , 000 men from the BEF within two days , at which time German troops were expected to block further evacuation . Only 25 , 000 men escaped during this period , including 7 , 669 on the first day . German advance halted . By 24 May the Germans captured the port of Boulogne and surrounded Calais . Captain ( later " Generaloberst " ) Heinz Guderian ' s engineers of the 2nd Panzer Division constructed five bridgeheads over the Canal Line , and only a single British battalion blocked the Germans from seizing the port facilities at Dunkirk . At this point , at the urging of Rundstedt and Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring , Hitler issued the Halt Order : the Panzers were ordered to stop their advance . After the war , several commanders , including Runstedt and OKH Chief of Staff General Franz Halder , tried to put the blame for this decision exclusively on Hitler . However , according to Rundstedt ' s official war diary , Rundstedt ordered the halt , concerned about the vulnerability of his flanks and the question of supply to his forward troops . He was also concerned that the marshy ground around Dunkirk would prove unsuitable for the use of tanks , and he wished to save some of the armour for the upcoming advance on Paris . Both these concerns were shared by Hitler , who merely validated the order several hours after the fact . Hitler was urged by Göring to let the Luftwaffe ( aided by Army Group B ) finish the British off , to the consternation of Halder , who noted in his diary that the ability to effectively use the air force was dependent upon the weather . In addition , the pilots were worn out after two weeks of battle . Army Group B and the Luftwaffe were unable to complete their mission due to heavy activity in the area by the Royal Air Force , a lack of motorised transport that slowed the advance of the infantry , and bad weather . On 26 May , Hitler ordered the Panzer groups to continue their advance , but the delay allowed the construction of defences vital to the evacuation . The Halt Order has been the subject of much discussion by historians . Guderian considered the failure to order a timely assault on Dunkirk to be one of the major mistakes the Germans made on the Western Front . Rundstedt called it " one of the great turning points of the war " , and Manstein described it as " one of Hitler ' s most critical mistakes " . Ongoing evacuation efforts . On 27 May , the first full day of the evacuation , active were one cruiser , eight destroyer s , and twenty - six other craft . Admiralty officers combed nearby boatyards for small craft that could ferry personnel from the beaches out to larger craft in the harbour , as well as larger vessels that could load from the docks . An emergency call was put out for additional help , and by 31 May nearly four hundred small craft were voluntarily and enthusiastically taking part in the effort . Also on 27 May , the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Dunkirk , both the town and the dock installations . As the water supply was knocked out , the resulting fires could not be extinguished . An estimated thousand civilians were killed , one - third of the remaining population of the town . The Luftwaffe was met by sixteen squadrons of the Royal Air Force , who claimed 38 kills on the 27th while experiencing the loss of 14 aircraft . Altogether over 3 , 500 sorties were flown in support of Operation Dynamo . The RAF continued to take a heavy toll on the German bombers throughout the week . Soldiers being bombed and strafed while awaiting transport were for the most part unaware of the efforts of the RAF to protect them , as most of the dogfights took place far from the beaches . As a result , many British soldiers bitterly accused the airmen of doing nothing to help . Knowing the truth of it , Churchill made a point of stating in his address in the House on 4 June that the evacuation had been made possible through the efforts of the Air Force . On 25 and 26 May , the Luftwaffe focussed their attention on Allied pockets holding out at Calais , Lille , and Amiens , and did not attack Dunkirk . Calais , held by the BEF , surrendered on 26 May . Remnants of the French First Army , surrounded at Lille , fought off seven German divisions ( several of them armoured ) until 31 May , when the remaining 35 , 000 soldiers were forced to surrender , having run out of food and ammunition . The Belgian Army surrendered on 28 May , leaving a large gap in the protective forces to the east of Dunkirk . Several British divisions were rushed in to cover that side . On 30 May , Churchill received word that all British divisions were now behind the defensive lines , along with more than half of the French First Army . By this time the perimeter ran along a series of canals about from the coast , in marshy country not suitable for tanks . With the docks in the harbour rendered unusable by German air attacks , Senior Naval Officer Captain ( later Admiral ) William Tennant initially ordered men to be evacuated from the beaches . When this proved too slow , he re - routed the evacuees to two long stone and concrete breakwaters , called the East and West Mole , as well as the beaches . Almost 200 , 000 troops embarked on ships from the East Mole ( which stretched nearly a mile out to sea ) over the next week . On 28 May 17 , 804 soldiers arrived at British ports . On 29 May , 47 , 310 British troops were rescued . The next day , an additional 53 , 823 men were embarked , including the first French soldiers . Lord Gort and 68 , 014 men were evacuated on 31 May , and Major - General Harold Alexander was left in command of the rearguard . A further 64 , 429 Allied soldiers departed on 1 June before the increasing air attacks prevented further daylight evacuation . The British rearguard of 4 , 000 men left on the night of 2 – 3 June , along with 60 , 000 French soldiers . An additional 26 , 000 French troops were retrieved the following night before the operation finally ended . The remainder of the rearguard — 40 , 000 French troops — surrendered on 4 June . Evacuation shipping routes . Three routes were allocated to the evacuating vessels . The shortest was Route Z , a distance of , but it entailed hugging the French coast and thus ships using it were subject to bombardment from on - shore batteries , particularly in daylight hours . Route X , although the safest from shore batteries , travelled through a particularly heavily mined portion of the Channel . Ships on this route travelled north out of Dunkirk , proceeded through the Ruytingen Pass , and headed towards the North Goodwin Lightship before heading south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover . The route was safest from surface attacks , but the nearby minefields and sand banks meant it could not used at night . The longest of the three was Route Y , a distance ; using this route increased the sailing time to four hours , double the time required if Route Z was used . This route followed the French coast as far as Bray - Dunes , then turned north - east until reaching the Kwinte Buoy . Here , after making an almost 270 degree turn , the ships sailed west to the North Goodwin Lightship and headed south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover . Ships on Route Y were the most likely to be attacked by German surface vessels , submarines , and the Luftwaffe . Ships used . The Royal Navy provided the anti - aircraft cruiser HMS " Calcutta " , thirty - nine destroyers , and many other craft . The Merchant Navy supplied passenger ferries , hospital ships , and other vessels . Britain ' s Belgian , Dutch , and French allies provided vessels as well . Admiral Ramsay arranged for around a thousand copies to be made of the required charts , had buoys laid around the Goodwin Sands and down to Dunkirk , and organised the flow of shipping . Larger ships such as destroyers were able to carry about 900 men per trip . The soldiers mostly travelled on the upper decks for fear of being trapped below if the ship sank . After the loss on 29 May of nineteen British and French navy ships plus three of the larger requisitioned vessels , the Admiralty withdrew their eight best destroyers from the operation to ensure they would be available for the future defence of the country . Little ships . A wide variety of small vessels from all over the south of England were pressed into service to aid in the Dunkirk evacuation . They included speedboats , Thames vessels , car ferries , pleasure craft , and many other types of small craft . The most useful proved to be the motor lifeboat s , which had a reasonably good capacity and speed . Some boats were requisitioned without the owner ' s knowledge or consent . Agents of the Ministry of Shipping , accompanied by a naval officer , scoured the Thames for likely - looking vessels , had them checked for sea - worthiness , and took them downriver to Sheerness , where naval crews were to be placed aboard . Due to shortages of personnel , many small craft crossed the Channel with civilian crews . The first of the " little ships " arrived at Dunkirk on 28 May . The wide sand beaches at Dunkirk meant that large vessels could not get anywhere near the shore , and even small craft had to stop about from the waterline and wait for the soldiers to wade out . In many cases , personnel would abandon their boat upon reaching a larger ship , and subsequent evacuees had to wait for boats to drift ashore with the tide before they could make use of them . In most areas on the beaches , soldiers queued up with their units and patiently awaited their turn to leave . But at times , panicky soldiers had to be warned off at gunpoint when they attempted to rush to the boats out of turn . In addition to ferrying out on boats , soldiers at La Panne and Bray - Dunes constructed improvised jetties by driving rows of abandoned vehicles onto the beach at low tide , anchoring them with sandbags , and connecting them with wooden walkways . Losses . Men and materiel . The BEF lost 68 , 000 soldiers ( dead , wounded , missing , or captured ) from 10 May until the surrender of France on 22 June . All the heavy equipment had to be abandoned . Left behind in France were 2 , 472 guns , 20 , 000 motorcycles , and almost 65 , 000 other vehicles ; also abandoned were of stores , more than of ammunition and of fuel . Almost all of the 445 British tanks that had been sent to France with the BEF were abandoned . The army lost so many rifles that an American journalist saw battalions marching through London with only a half dozen rifles each . Naval losses . Six British and three French destroyers were sunk , along with nine other major vessels . In addition , 19 destroyers were damaged . Over 200 British and Allied sea craft were sunk , with a similar number damaged . The Royal Navy ' s most significant losses in the operation were six destroyers : The French Navy lost three destroyers : Air losses . The RAF lost 145 aircraft , of which at least 42 were Spitfires , while the Luftwaffe lost 156 aircraft in operations in the nine days of Operation Dynamo . The Royal Navy claimed the destruction of 35 Luftwaffe aircraft from ships ' gunfire during the period from 27 May to 1 June , and damage to another 21 aircraft . Aircraft losses from 10 May until the fall of France were 959 for the British and 1 , 279 for the Germans . Aftermath . Before the operation was completed , the prognosis had been gloomy , with Winston Churchill warning the House of Commons on 28 May to expect " hard and heavy tidings " . Subsequently , Churchill referred to the outcome as a " miracle " , and the British press presented the evacuation as a " disaster turned to triumph " so successfully that Churchill had to remind the country , in a speech to the House of Commons on 4 June , that " we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory . Wars are not won by evacuations . " Nevertheless , exhortations to the " Dunkirk spirit " , a phrase used to describe the tendency of the British public to pull together and overcome times of adversity , are still heard in the United Kingdom today . Three British divisions and a host of logistic and labour troops were cut off to the south of the Somme by the German " race to the sea " . At the end of May , a further two divisions began moving to France with the hope of establishing a Second BEF . The majority of the 51st ( Highland ) Division was forced to surrender on 12 June , but almost 192 , 000 Allied personnel , 144 , 000 of them British , were evacuated through various French ports from 15 – 25 June under the codename Operation Ariel . A major setback was the sinking of the troopship HMT " Lancastria " at St Nazaire , with the loss of around 4 , 000 lives . The Germans marched into Paris on 14 June and France surrendered eight days later . Fate of the French soldiers . More than 100 , 000 evacuated French troops were quickly and efficiently shuttled to camps in various parts of southwestern England , where they were temporarily lodged before being repatriated . British ships ferried French troops to Brest , Cherbourg , and other ports in Normandy and Brittany , although only about half of the repatriated troops were deployed against the Germans before the surrender of France . For many French soldiers , the Dunkirk evacuation represented only a few weeks ' delay before being killed or captured by the German army after their return to France . Of the French soldiers evacuated from France in July 1940 , only about 3 , 000 joined Charles de Gaulle ' s Free French army in London . By the end of the year , De Gaulle commanded just 7 , 000 Free French soldiers , despite the large number ferried to England during Operation Dynamo . In France , the unilateral British decision to evacuate through Dunkirk rather than counter - attack to the south , and the perceived preference of the Royal Navy for evacuating British forces at the expense of the French , led to some bitter resentment . According to Churchill , French Admiral François Darlan originally ordered that the British forces should receive preference but on 31 May he intervened at a meeting in Paris to order that the evacuation should proceed on equal terms and that the British would form the rearguard . In fact , the 35 , 000 soldiers who finally surrendered after protecting the BEF retreat were mostly French . Their resistance allowed the evacuation effort to be extended to 4 June , on which date another 26 , 175 Frenchmen were brought to the United Kingdom . British POWs . For every seven soldiers who escaped through Dunkirk , one man was left behind as a prisoner of war . The majority of these prisoners were sent on forced marches into Germany . Prisoners reported brutal treatment by their guards , including beatings , starvation , and murder . In particular , the British prisoners complained that French prisoners were given preferential treatment . Another major complaint was that German guards kicked over buckets of water that had been left at the roadside by French civilians for the marching prisoners to drink . Many of the prisoners were marched to the town of Trier , with the march taking as long as 20 days . Others were marched to the river Scheldt and were sent by barge to the Ruhr . The prisoners were then sent by rail to prisoner of war camps in Germany . The majority ( those below the rank of corporal ) then worked in German industry and agriculture for the remainder of the war . Dunkirk jack . The St George ' s Cross defaced with the arms of Dunkirk flown from the jack staff is the warranted house flag of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships . It is known as the Dunkirk jack . The flag is flown only by civilian vessels that took part in the Dunkirk rescue operation .