Dunkirk

Dunkirk Fr. Dunkerque. Welcome to the historic city of Dunkirk, France.(1990 pop. 71,071) located on the North Sea. It is a leading French port with daily ferry service to Ramsgate and Dover, England. It is a steel center; oil refining, shipbuilding, food processing, and the manufacture of electrical equipment are also important.



Probably founded c.7th cent. and often fortified, Dunkirk played a key role in the struggles in Europe that extended over centuries; it was ruled successively by Flanders, Burgundy, Austria, France, England, and Spain.

Ceded briefly in the 1650s to Oliver Cromwell, it was bought back permanently from Charles II by Louis XIV in 1662. The town withstood an Anglo-Dutch bombardment in 1694 and an English siege in 1793. During the 19th cent. improvements were made on the harbor, and Dunkirk grew in commercial importance.



During World War II, more than 300,000 Allied troops who were cut off from retreat on land by the German breakthrough to the French Channel ports were evacuated (May 26–June 4, 1940) from Dunkirk. The retreat was carried out by all kinds of available British craft, some manned by civilian volunteers, and was protected by the Royal Air Force. It is considered one of the epic actions of naval history.

Dunkirk, nicknamed "The Heroic City", was the seat of the Dynamo Operation in May 1940. In nine days, 338,226 Allied soldiers were evacuated from the "Dunkirk hell" by the sea.




On 20 May 1940, two German Panzer divisions commanded by Guderian reached Abbeville and the sea, respectively, therefore splitting the Allied troops into two parts: one million of French, Belgian and British soldiers were caught in the trap.



On 24 May, the German panzers set up six bridgeheads on river Aa and reached the city of Bourbourg. An order by General Von Rundstedt, confirmed by Adolf Hitler, who was only interested in seizing Paris, stopped the breakthrough up to 27 May.




The French General Weygand proposed to counter-attack but the British War Cabinet supported General Gort's plan, ordered the evacuation and set up the Dynamo operation. The operation was commanded by Vice Admiral Ramsay from a cellar of the castle of Dover and lasted from 26 May to 4 June.



The evacuation was protected by the Royal Air Force but the German bombers, supported by stukas, systematically bombed the town of Dunkirk, the beaches and the big vessels. On 29 May, 400 bombers sunk 250 ships. On 4 June, the Shikari completed the evacuation, some seven hours before the entrance of the German troops into the port of Dunkirk. The Germans could capture "only" 35,000 soldiers.



The operation was celebrated in London as a great success, even if Churchill mentioned that wars cannot be won with evacuations.