Dunkirk

It is seventy years today since the miracle at Dunkirk. A story that makes every Englishman and woman who thinks about these things stand tall with pride and gratitude.

Half a million allied troops, cornered in North West France. The German Panzers moving in from all directions and the Luftwaffe overhead. Behind, just the sea. The Royal Navy standing impotently off-shore, unable to navigate the shallow waters of Dunkirk. The Free World holding its breath and thirty miles away, the people of Britain watch in horror and disbelief at what is about to happen. Then the miracle began.

From every river, from every creek, from every beach on the East Coast of England came the little ships. Young boys in sailing dinghies; old men in fishing boats; women in rowing boats. Luxury cruisers and old ferries; boats that had never seen more than a local lake and boats that had spent their years at sea. Rafts and barges. Anything and everything that could float or be made to float and that could move. Onward they came across the cruel North Sea. Past the mighty warships and into the hell of Dunkirk. They had come for their husbands, their fathers, their sons and their friends. And under the guns of the Third Reich at its most terrible they pulled three hundred and fifty thousand men to safety.

A defeat, of course. But a defeat that showed the Nazis and the world that this was no ordinary people and no ordinary country. This was one that would never stop fighting until the victory was won.

Forgive me for getting emotional on these anniversaries.

Hugh