BBC ON THIS DAY | 4 | 1940: Dunkirk rescue is over - Churchill defiant Search ON THIS DAY by date About This Site | Text Only 1940: Dunkirk rescue is over - Churchill defiant The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, has described the "miracle of deliverance" from Dunkirk and warned of an impending invasion. His moving speech to Parliament came on the day the last allied soldier arrived home from France at the end of a 10-day operation to bring back hundreds of thousands of retreating allied troops trapped by the German Army. Many French troops remained to hold the perimeter and were captured. Major-General Harold Alexander inspected the shores of Dunkirk from a motorboat this morning to make sure no-one was left behind before boarding the last ship back to Britain. The beach and sea were in chaos. There were bodies floating in the water and we were under constant attack from machine-gun fire, bombing, explosions sending shrapnel in every direction. There were bodies floating in the water and we were under constant attack from machine-gun fire, bombing, explosions sending shrapnel in every direction.

People's War memories » Battle-weary and hungry soldiers from the retreating British Expeditionary Force (BEF) as well as French and Belgian troops had spent many days waiting to board ships from the one remaining pier, the east mole. Many thousands were taken straight off the beaches, struggling in shallow waters to board small vessels that transferred them to the waiting ships. When those who survived the evacuation arrived exhausted in England they were welcomed as returning heroes and offered plenty of tea and sandwiches as they boarded special trains. Commander-in-chief of the BEF, Lord Gort, arrived back in England on 1 June and was also feted as a hero. When his force was almost swallowed up by the Germans - after the French were driven south from Sedan and the Belgians surrendered - he took the vital decision to withdraw to Dunkirk where, according to the Times newspaper, four-fifths of his men were rescued. This afternoon Mr Churchill admitted to the House that when Operation Dynamo was launched on 26 May to rescue allied forces cornered by the advancing Germany Army, he expected about 20,000 or 30,000 would be saved.

But thanks to the valour of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, no less than 338,000 British and French troops were rescued and brought back across the Channel to fight another day. Mr Churchill tempered his admiration for the success of Operation Dynamo with these words: "Wars are not won by evacuations". He said there was no doubt in his mind that the last few weeks had been a "colossal military disaster". The BEF had to leave behind all its heavy armour and equipment. The French army was weakened, the Belgian army had surrendered, Channel ports, valuable mines and factories in France and Belgium had been taken over by the enemy. He said the nation should brace itself for another blow. "We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles," he said. Returning troops were vital if Britain were to resist such an invasion. He ended his speech with a defiant message to Hitler's armies. "We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.

We shall never surrender." Britain would "ride out the tyranny of war, if necessary for years, if necessary alone." Mr Churchill paid special tribute to the Royal Air Force that had provided what protection it could for the ships and stranded soldiers . The Royal Navy sent 220 light war ships and 650 other vessels under a hail of bombs and artillery fire. We Shall Fight on the Beaches We Shall Fight on the Beaches We Shall Fight on the Beaches June 4, 1940. House of Commons The position of the B. E.F had now become critical As a result of a most skillfully conducted retreat and German errors, the bulk of the British Forces reached the Dunkirk bridgehead. The peril facing the British nation was now suddenly and universally perceived. On May 26, "Operation Dynamo "--the evacuation from Dunkirk began. The seas remained absolutely calm. The Royal Air Force--bitterly maligned at the time by the Army--fought vehemently to deny the enemy the total air supremacy which would have wrecked the operation.

At the outset, it was hoped that 45,000 men might be evacuated; in the event, over 338,000 Allied troops reached England, including 26,000 French soldiers. On June 4, Churchill reported to the House of Commons, seeking to check the mood of national euphoria and relief at the unexpected deliverance, and to make a clear appeal to the United States. From the moment that the French defenses at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French Armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this strategic fact was not immediately realized. The French High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium.

Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realized and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it. However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nine armored divisions, each of about four hundred armored vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main French Armies. It severed our own communications for food and ammunition, which ran first to Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville, and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to Dunkirk.

Behind this armored and mechanized onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German Army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own. I have said this armored scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk-almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Victoria's Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about four thousand strong, defended Calais to the last. The British Brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain.

At least two armored divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops. Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the Armies of the north to reopen their communications to Amiens with the main French Armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French Armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighboring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air. When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked.

But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British Armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity. That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland.

Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat. I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed.

So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast. The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned.

All their armored divisions-or what Was left of them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French Armies fought. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory.

Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it. This was a great trial of strength between the British and German Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes-and we know that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions.

Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types-the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant-and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face. When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen. The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth.

The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that Every morn brought forth a noble chance And every chance brought forth a noble knight, deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land. I return to the Army. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the House to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today.

His son has been killed, and many in the House have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them. Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns -- nearly one thousand-and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped.

The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped Army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Capital and Labor have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock. Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general program. Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster.

The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy's possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. "There are bitter weeds in England." There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned. The whole question of home defense against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally.

We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defenses in this Island into such a high state of organization that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty's Government.

We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. Posted in Boats , Bravery , Famous battles , Historical articles , History , Ships , World War 2 on Friday, 24 February 2012 Click on any image for details about licensing for commercial or personal use. This edited article about the Second World War originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 651 published on 6 July 1974.

The evacuation of the B.E.F from Dunkirk by Graham Coton It is often supposed that Germany’s 1940 blitzkrieg in the West was successfully carried out with an overwhelming superiority of ground forces, particularly armour. This is just not true. In every branch of its armies, the Third Reich operated from numerical inferiority – even in the most decisive arm of all, in tanks. German tanks in 1940 were fewer and less powerful than those of the Allies. The sober truth is that the Germans had a better battle plan. As we have said before, the tank was a British invention, and the revolutionary theory of tank warfare at high speed – the blitzkrieg – was a British theory. It was left to Germany to use the tank in the way that brought out its advantages of mobility, hitting-power, effect on enemy morale, and so forth. Germany was also blessed, in that fateful early Summer of 1940, with a commander who had absorbed the new theory of tank warfare and who passionately believed in it. General Heinz Guderian led the armoured spearhead through the Ardennes and pressed on for the coast.

In doing so, he reduced the Allied High Command to utter confusion, for such behaviour had no parallel. According to the military textbooks, a commander who was so foolish as to direct a single column of attack deep into enemy territory ran the risk of running out of supplies, of being cut off from the rear, and of being attacked from the flanks. In the event, Guderian managed pretty well for supplies; and there was no one at Allied headquarters to give the order either to cut him off or attack him from the flanks (even if there had been troops available for these tasks), because no one in Allied headquarters had the slightest idea of the speed and direction of Guderian’s advance. When the lead motor-cycle units of the German panzers rattled into Abbeville on May 20th, it must have seemed like an invasion from Mars. After Abbeville, they threw away the military textbooks . . . Allied Central Command was cracking up fast. It was left to the British Cabinet to order the British Expeditionary Force to reverse its line of march and drive towards Amiens, in an attempt to cut off the German thrust at the neck.

It was an impossible order, but General Lord Gort did his best by attacking with what armour he could lay his hands on. This small counter-attack did little or nothing to upset Guderian, but – as we shall see – it had an incalculable effect on the German High Command, not all of whom had Guderian’s inspired devotion to the theory of blitzkrieg. Gort’s counter-thrust was further hampered by the replacement of the Allied commander-in-chief, General Gamelin, by General Weygand. Weygand took three precious days to examine the situation, before he approved the plan. The breaking point came, on May 27th, when the Belgians cracked under the pressure of attack. Their king sued for an armistice, and his troops blew “Cease Fire” the following dawn. This left a hole in the line, through which the Germans poured unchecked. By this time, Gort had already taken a definite decision to retreat to Dunkirk, and to evacuate as much of the B.E.F. as could be taken away by the Royal Navy.

By this time also, Guderian’s spearhead had already crossed the line of the canal – the last defence line of the port – only ten miles from Dunkirk. By May 26th, the full realisation of the B.E.F.’s peril had descended upon the British people. That day, churches throughout the country were packed to the doors, and a special Service of Intercession was celebrated in Westminster Abbey, where the highest in the land knelt to pray for their battle-weary troops in retreat through the fields of Flanders. Winston Churchill recalled how, in his stall in the choir of the great church, he was conscious of the congregation’s fear – not of death, wounds or material loss, but of the defeat and ruin of their country. As it was, two factors were already operating towards the salvation of the B.E.F. First, for no apparent reason, Guderian was halted at the line of the Dunkirk canal by a personal order from Hitler. Second, the Admiralty had already begun to assemble a fleet of small craft to terry our troops from the port and beaches of Dunkirk.

They assembled in their hundreds, the little ships of Britain: ferry-boats, naval drifters, coasters, fishing boats – every conceivable type of craft under a thousand tons. The operation was put under the command of Admiral Ramsay, and was given the code-name of ‘Dynamo’. Contrary to legend, most of the troops were embarked from Dunkirk Harbour itself, and less than a third from the open beaches. The latter method put a terrible strain on the crews of small boats ferrying men from the shallows to the bigger craft waiting offshore. On the evening of the 29th, and from then on, the Luftwaffe pummelled the harbour and the beaches. Fortunately, the soft sand blanketed the effect of the blast, but the little ships fared badly: out of a total of 860 craft of all sizes used in the evacuation, six destroyers, eight troop ships and more than 200 smaller craft were sunk. The last rearguard was embarked on the night of June 2nd, and Operation ‘Dynamo’ was shut down on the 4th, with 338,000 British and Allied troops brought back to fight another day.

Why, with the annihilation of the B.E.F. within his grasp, did Hitler check the onward thrust of his armoured spearhead? Many reasons are put forward. Here are five: The very speed of Guderian’s advance had proved his undoing. His superiors half-believed that he was driving to destruction – and they advised Hitler to put on the brake. It was thought, by the German High Command, that Guderian’s armour should be conserved for the next stage of the battle for France. In fact, the battle was all but over bar the shouting. Goring, head of the Luftwaffe, insisted that the B.E.F., cornered in Dunkirk, could be wiped out from the air. He was wrong. Hitler – himself a veteran of the muddy Flanders fighting in World War I – was fearful that his tanks would get bogged down. In fact, the going was dry and hard all that marvellous summer. Lastly – and a strange one, this – some of the German generals believed that Hitler allowed the B.E.F. to get away, so that Britain – her pride and honour satisfied – would be more willing to make peace.

If this last explanation is correct, Hitler was very, very mistaken about the British. SHEER TERROR: A MIRACLE Of DELIVERANCE | Worldview Weekend SHEER TERROR: A MIRACLE Of DELIVERANCE SHEER TERROR: A MIRACLE Of DELIVERANCE Behind the prosperous facade of America 's culture, is an overwhelming fear among our people. It appears that radical Islam and the human meat-grinder that is atheistic Communism are closing in on world domination. Like Gideon of old who was surrounded by his enemies, we are tempted to cry out, "Where are the miracles of God?" But just as in biblical times, we can discern the Lord's qualifications for activating His protective miracles in a time of terror. It is no problem for our sovereign God to control the aiming and firing of all weapons (II Chron. 20), the delusion of His enemies (II Kings 7), or control the weather to help His people (Luke 8). The following story is one of innumerable illustrations of His power that should dominate our perspective as we survey the past and ponder the future.

It was 24/7 sheer terror and panic for the mothers of the English Empire in 1940. They had just lost 878,000 of their sons 20 years before in WWI. And now the Nazis were enslaving virtually all of Europe in May and June of 1940. The bloodiest war in history was unfolding before them and again these mothers would have to offer their most precious resource to, as Winston Churchill said, "save Christian civilization." , the English and French were forced to declare war on Germany and the British sent over their army to defend France . On May 1st of 1940, Adolph Hitler's Army launched an all out attack called the Blitzkrieg. Within 2 weeks the Panzer Tank Divisions had reached the English Channel, pouring like a flood through the French and Belgium troops, leaving the British Expeditionary force, over 300,000 men, pinned against the ocean. All the ports had been destroyed and the matchless English Navy was helpless to approach the shallow shoreline for a rescue. It seemed certain that the flower of Britain 's Army would be lost.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that they would be fortunate to get 20,000 of their men back over the channel before they were destroyed. On May 26th, King George VI declared a National Day of Prayer for deliverance. But as the formerly proud British lay humbly before the Lord that day, a series of events was already unfolding that would change the course of human history. On May 24, Hitler issued a halt order, keeping his tank divisions from destroying Dunkirk , the last sea port of escape for the Brits. Instead, the Fuehrer, acting irrationally against his generals' advice, chose his air force to finish the annihilation. But just as the planes were taking off, a storm grounded them, giving the British the opportunity to escape to the coast. Then, as the English were trapped on the beach, the ocean was stilled making the violent English Channel like a lake with a cover of fog. This made it possible for an armada of small boats and ships to ferry 335,000 troops from the shallow beaches at Dunkirk . It will forever be known as the Miracle of Dunkirk As the allied troops arrived back in England , they were greeted as heroes.

All of England knew they had witnessed a miracle. Winston Churchill called it a "miracle of deliverance." In 1943, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev. Temple, declared "Why has God preserved us? We may, and we must, believe that He, who has preserved our land in a manor so marvelous, has a purpose for us to serve in the preparation for His perfect Kingdom." Throughout WWII the allies were blessed with remarkable providences. England and America had founded and funded the modern missionary movement. God moved, as He has consistently throughout history from biblical times to today, to defeat those ungodly nations that would attempt to eliminate those nations who would proclaim His liberating Gospel. Contrary to the unbalanced perspective of the numerous secular histories of WWII, most of the English and Americans knew they had seen God's favor in battle after battle. In fact, a war college professor, war historian and Navy Captain told me that until the late 1950's the war colleges were teaching how most of the major sea battles in American history had been determined by God's direction of the weather.

and America , after their providential victory in the Great War, sensed their burden of destiny and spearheaded the greatest evangelistic missionary thrust in history in the mid 20th Century. The evangelical movement in America exploded in 1946 and overwhelmed the sick and dying liberal churches which had turned their backs on the Bible. And in England , the BBC, the government owned radio and TV Company in Britain , put all of England to bed each night with an evangelical sermon from men like C.S. Lewis, followed by the reading of the Psalms. This continued until 1956. How far we and they have fallen in 50 years! Since the 1960's, we especially in the English speaking world, have forgotten our mission, as the Miracle of Dunkirk and His other powerful miracles have been forgotten. Abraham Lincoln, in the dark hours of the civil war, clearly saw the only hope for proud and forgetful nations like ours. He said, "But we have forgotten God.

We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." The great truth that should encourage our hearts is that our personal and national future does not ultimately rest on the government bureaucracy or even on our fine military. Enemies we cannot see are acquiring suitcase nuclear bombs and the Chinese have just shot a satellite out of the sky. Our only sure hope is for the believing Church to end its 50 year love affair with the idol of big government, expecting it to save them and ensure their prosperity. Then, as we bow in humility and obedience before the Lord of the nations, who calmed the English Channel , He may come to our aid.

BBC NEWS | UK | The 'miracle' of Dunkirk Tuesday, 30 May, 2000, 08:17 GMT 09:17 UK The 'miracle' of Dunkirk Hundreds of civilian ships helped the soldiers to escape More than 300,000 troops were evacuated from Dunkirk and the surrounding beaches in May and June 1940. At the time the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said it was "a miracle of deliverance". Dunkirk writer David J. Knowles explains what happened. "A miracle" - is the best description of what happened at Dunkirk in May and June 1940. Hundreds of thousands of troops were rescued from the German advance in the nick of time. The troops were desperately needed back on the home shores to help defend against a Nazi invasion. They were rescued from the harbour and beaches near to Dunkirk by a curious assembly of many different types of craft. Many of the little ships, such as motor yachts, fishing boats and all manner of other such craft, were privately owned.

German forces underestimated Although a large number of these ships were taken across the channel by navy personnel - many were also taken over by their owners and other civilians, all eager to help in what had become a catastrophe. The British, French and Belgium governments had seriously underestimated the strength of the German forces in their equipment, transport and fire power - which was far superior to much of our outdated armoury. Consequently the British Expeditionary Force, as well as the French and Belgian forces, found themselves defending positions against overwhelming odds. Desperate retreat Before long, with the Germans effectively cutting off nearly all of the escape routes to the channel, the BEF found itself desperately retreating to the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk. Vice Admiral Ramsay - who was in charge of Operation Dynamo - had sent destroyers and transport ships to evacuate the troops, but they only expected to have time to lift off about 30,000 troops. However, before long, the harbour became partially blocked by ships sunk in consistent attacks from enemy aircraft. It became necessary to take the troops off the nearby beaches as well - something that was thought to be an almost impossible task because of shallow water. Seemed like a victory This is when the little ships came to play their part.

A variety of motor boats, fishing smacks, trawlers, lifeboats, paddle steamers and many other types of craft came over the channel to assist in the escape. They mainly ferried the troops from the beaches to the destroyers laying offshore - but thousands of troops came all the way back to England in some of these boats. The escape captured the minds and hearts of the British people at a time when it looked probable that we too would soon be invaded. It seemed like a victory in just getting the troops back - over a third of a million of them - to fight another day. David J. Knowles is the author of Escape From Catastrophe, 1940 Dunkirk. Winston Churchill: We shall fight on the beaches | From the Guardian | The Guardian We shall fight on the beaches This speech was delivered to House of Commons on June 4 1940 Friday 20 April 2007 11.33 EDT First published on Friday 20 April 2007 11.33 EDT Share on Messenger Close The position of the British Expeditionary Force had now become critical.

As a result of a most skillfully conducted retreat and German errors, the bulk of the British forces reached the Dunkirk bridgehead. The peril facing the British nation was now suddenly and universally perceived. On May 26, "Operation Dynamo " - the evacuation from Dunkirk began. The seas remained absolutely calm. The Royal Air Force - bitterly maligned at the time by the Army - fought vehemently to deny the enemy the total air supremacy which would have wrecked the operation. At the outset, it was hoped that 45,000 men might be evacuated; in the event, over 338,000 Allied troops reached England, including 26,000 French soldiers. On June 4, Churchill reported to the House of Commons, seeking to check the mood of national euphoria and relief at the unexpected deliverance, and to make a clear appeal to the United States. From the moment that the French defences at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian king; but this strategic fact was not immediately realised.

The French High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium. Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realised and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it. However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nine armoured divisions, each of about four hundred armoured vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main French armies.

It severed our own communications for food and ammunition, which ran first to Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville, and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to Dunkirk. Behind this armoured and mechanised onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own. I have said this armoured scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk - almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Victoria's Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about four thousand strong, defended Calais to the last. The British brigadier was given an hour to surrender.

He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armoured divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops. Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the armies of the north to reopen their communications to Amiens with the main French armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighbouring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air.

When, a week ago today, I asked the house to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought - and some good judges agreed with me - that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the house and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity. That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The king of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid.

Had not this ruler and his government severed themselves from the allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat. I asked the house a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length.

Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast. The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous air force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter.

Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armoured divisions - or what was left of them - together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French Armies fought. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage.

The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty. Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment - but only for the moment - died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously.

The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the air force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the air force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it. This was a great trial of strength between the British and German air forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands?

Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes - and we know that they are a very brave race - have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types - the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant - and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face. When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen.

The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armoured vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilisation itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that: Every morn brought forth a noble chance And every chance brought forth a noble knight. They deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land. I return to the Army.

In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well - in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the house to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in the house have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them. Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy.

But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns - nearly one thousand - and all our transport, all the armoured vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and weekdays. Capital and labour have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock.

Already the flow of munitions has leapt forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general programme. Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonising week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy's possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone: "There are bitter weeds in England." There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.

The whole question of home defence against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defences in this island into such a high state of organisation that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realised. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the house, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session.

Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the house by members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty's Government. We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours.

There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the house, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out. Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manoeuvre.

I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised. I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government - every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. · Speech copyright © Winston S Churchill. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of The Estate of Winston Churchill . · Collect the first of 14 booklets including this speech, Simon Schama's introduction and contemporary Guardian coverage, free with the Guardian on Saturday April 21 2007.

Topics The Miracle of Dunkirk | Tomorrow's World Home Read Commentary The Miracle of Dunkirk The Miracle of Dunkirk Comment on this article Back in 1940, as Britain faced its “darkest hour” of World War II, the nation's future hung in the balance. During a remarkable and harrowing window of eight days in late May and early June, a series of miracles took place, focused on the evacuation of the British army at Dunkirk. On its 75th anniversary, we can learn much from those miraculous events. On May 26, Winston Churchill gave the order for “ Operation Dynamo ,” and the epic deliverance of the British and French armies began on the following day. By June 3, some 224,000 British and 111,000 French troops had been plucked from the French beaches, far more than expected. Churchill later hailed their rescue “a miracle of deliverance” (Churchill: A Life, Martin Gilbert, p. 655). A furious aerial battle was waged high above Dunkirk. German planes had a decisive numerical advantage but, miraculously, the Luftwaffe failed to stop the evacuation or reduce the resistance of the defenders.

More than 800 ships of all types were involved, including a motley flotilla of small vessels that came from dozens of English coastal holiday resorts. The weather was part of the miracle too; an unusually calm period of benign conditions greatly helped the evacuation. Nonetheless, despite overall success, all too many ships were sunk, and rescuers and soldiers alike perished in the aerial bombardment. Churchill called the events in France “a colossal military disaster” but it could have been even worse. On May 24, Hitler ordered his Panzer divisions to stop for two days in order to regroup. Hitler’s generals later considered this to be one of the major mistakes and strategic blunders of the war. But from the Allies’ perspective, this was part of the miracle of deliverance. Had Hitler “gone in for the kill” at Britain’s moment of maximum vulnerability, the war would have been lost. Another of the great miracles in 1940 was how the nation came together in its hour of trial, united under Churchill’s energetic leadership.

Hitler was wrong in thinking that Britain would capitulate; on May 28, before the results of Dunkirk were known, Churchill announced that the nation would fight on regardless, and never surrender. This was followed by some of his most famous speeches of defiance that further strengthened the national resolve. Remarkably, Churchill had foreseen this specific moment of peril, and his leadership in overcoming it, some 50 years before. Was this not also one of the miracles of this fated hour? In 1940, Britain by a whisker escaped Nazi subjugation, through a series of events that can only be described as miraculous. But, perhaps the biggest miracle of all is that God was ultimately the one who delivered Britain. On May 26, 1940, the same day Churchill ordered the Dunkirk evacuation, a special service was held at Westminster Abbey attended by King George VI. A national day of prayer was declared for God’s deliverance, and many a Briton looked to God for His intervention. Was this the deeper miracle of Dunkirk, and all that followed? The facts speak loudly that it was. How thankful we should be that God heard those prayers, and that eventually the Nazi tyranny was defeated.

Freedom and the rule of law were allowed to prevail. As a result, the idea of the “Dunkirk spirit”—pulling together to overcome times of adversity—lives on in British folklore. If we profess to know God, we will trust Him. God has not changed, but have we? “And those who know your name will put their trust in you; for you, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:10). How thankful we can be that God will always be there for us in our hour of need—when we sincerely seek Him, when we ask for His intervention in our affairs, and when we strive to walk in harmony with all His ways.

Question: Winston Churchill referred to what event as the 'Miracle of Deliverance'?
Answer: Dunkirk