Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture
THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERTHE EPIC TRUE STORY OF DUNKIRK - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, AND STARRING KENNETH BRANAGH, TOM HARDY, AND MARK RYLANCE.In 1940, at the French port of Dunkirk, more than 300,000 trapped Allied troops were dramatically rescued from destruction at the hands of Nazi Germany by an extraordinary seaborne evacuation. The true history of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians involved in the nine-day skirmish has passed into legend. Now, the story Winston Churchill described as a 'miracle' is narrated by bestselling author Joshua Levine in its full, sweeping context, including new interviews with veterans and survivors.Told from the viewpoints of land, sea and air, Joshua Levine’s Dunkirk is a dramatic account of a defeat that paved the way to ultimate victory and preserved liberty for generations to come.
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William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © Joshua Levine 2017
Cover image copyright © 2017 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.Copyright © 2017 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. DUNKIRK and all related characters and elements are trademarks and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. WB SHIELD: ™ and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (S17)
Joshua Levine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Map by John Gilkes
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Excerpt from The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (Copyright © George Orwell, 1937), reprinted by permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell; (Victor Gollancz 1937, Martin Secker & Warburg 1959, Penguin Books 1962, 1989, Penguin Classics 2001). Copyright © 1937 by Eric Blair. This edition copyright © the Estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell, 1986; and Copyright © 1958 and renewed 1986 by the Estate of Sonia B. Orwell, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Source ISBN: 9780008227876
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008227883
Version: 2017-05-22
To Lionel who inspired me.
To Peggy whom I hope to inspire.
To Philip Brown, Eric Roderick, Harold ‘Vic’ Viner and Charlie Searle with thanks.
One afternoon, sitting in the National Archives in Kew, I opened a file containing a report by Commander Michael Ellwood. Commander Ellwood was in charge of communications during the Dunkirk evacuation, and he wrote, in passing, of a Marconi transmitter/receiver that was used for a very short time before it broke down – due to ‘sand in the generator’.
This seemed surprising. How had sand got inside this precious piece of equipment? The Marconi TV5 was a sizeable box, and the memory of Laurel and Hardy delivering a piano in The Music Box flashed through my mind. Had two particularly clumsy ratings dropped it on the beach? Had Captain William Tennant, the Senior Naval Officer Dunkirk, yelled at them in frustration when they told him what they had just done to his only piece of transmitting equipment? Or did they stay quiet and hope that somebody else got the blame?
A short while later, in May 2016, I was standing at the shore end of the Dunkirk mole, very close to where Captain Tennant had placed his headquarters. Looking around, I could see parts of the Dunkirk beach cluttered with soldiers – or men who looked like soldiers. There were warships out to sea, and a white hospital ship, clearly marked with red crosses, was berthed at the end of the mole. Black smoke billowed in the distance, and the sea frontage had been camouflaged to remove any traces of the late twentieth century. Dunkirk was looking remarkably as it had in late May 1940.
Something else was striking, though. The wind had picked up and sand was whipping everywhere. It was clogging hair and stinging eyes. Most people were wearing goggles and shielding their faces – and I suddenly realised that nobody had dropped the transmitter. There had been no clumsy ratings. Sand had been blown into the generator in May 1940 just as it was now blowing into everybody’s eyes and ears. By spending time at Dunkirk, I was learning things about the original event that I could simply never have learned otherwise.
This is why I would urge anybody interested in the story of the evacuation to visit Dunkirk. Walking along the beaches and up the mole, exploring the perimeter where French and British troops kept the Germans at bay, visiting the excellent War Museum, the deeply moving cemetery and Église Saint-Éloi with its bullet- and shrapnel-pitted walls – these are all activities that will bring the events of May and June 1940 to life. The landscape retains the story, and fills in the gaps between words.
