Customer Reviews

Dunkirk 1940: Operation Dynamo (Campaign)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the opening chapter. "Origins", the author briefly explains how Kuchler captures Holland in five days and how Guderian took four days to travel through the Ardennes to reach the fortress town of Sedan, then quickly capturing it before turning toward the coast in order to enclose the Allies in a pocket when Army Group B also reaches the French border. Once informed of the Sedan penetration, General Gort quickly recognizes the danger and disregarding the French orders and safety, orders the BEF to fall back from the Dyle River to beyond the Senne line in a phased withdrawal that eventually take his people back to the Dunkirk Perimeter. This chapter filled only two pages, providing the bare essentials but more details would have been preferred.
There was a two page Chronology that ranged from 9/1/39 with the Polish invasion to 6/22/40 with the signing of the Armistice. It was very good.

Opposing Commanders was another chapter found wanting. The profiles of Gort, Ramsey, Abrial and Fagalde were nice but profiles of Brooke, Dill, Montgomery, Alexander are absent though they are mentioned in the campaign. Billotte, Gamlin, Weygand, Reynaud and Churchill aren't mentioned in the campaign but a few words are included in the Chronology. On the German side Kuchler and Richthofen are profiled but Runstedt, Guderian and Kluge aren't.
Opposing Plans and Opposing Forces are very good and helps the reader follow the Campaign. Plans for Operation Dynamo are spelled out clearly, so showing the difficulties of evacuation of the difficult French coast while under fire. On the German side, a good explanation of what the Germans will try to do once they see the Allies were falling back to the Dunkirk-Lille area. The forces for both sides are also clearly provided, ending in a detailed Order of Battle for all three countries for the Army, Navy and Air Force. The author gives equal weight to the action on land, sea and air. Goring's boast of his Luffwaffe and Hitler's halt order is discussed as well as the spoiling counterattack by the BEF at Arras.

The Campaign is laid out in typical "Dunkirk" fashion on a daily basis ranging from May 26th when Operation Dynamo was enacted to June 4th when the survivors of the pocket surrendered. Though page limitations prevented the coverage of every event, all the key events were well covered. The conflict at sea and in the air was also nicely done. The British and to a lesser extent the French lost or had damaged a large number of ships and planes caused by the Luftwaffe or from their coastal artillery. The evacuation of the British Air Force back to England is covered. The Belgian surrender on May 28th was covered. The failed attempt by the British to stop the Norway invasion is also mentioned.

There were five 2-D maps that were excellent that were serialized to show the shrinking pocket starting on May 26th and working to June 4th. The maps showed detailed troop dispositions and the many towns and canals the combatants had to fight through as the days past by. One of the maps shows the evacuation routes used by the British to evacuate over 300,000 men as well as the difficult maneuvering of the tricky waters off northern France and Belgium.
There were three 3-D maps. Two of which were of the Dunkirk pocket, one dated 5/30 and the other for the period of 6/2-6/4. Both maps had helpful commentary to assist the reader in following the battle. The other 3-D map was not as helpful. It was a rendition of the sinking of the Wakeful and the Grafton when it moved in to rescue the survivors on May 28/29 after they left the harbor.
There were also three two-page illustrations. They included the Battle for Cassel, the major Luftwaffe raid on 5/29; the major dogfight over Dunkirk on 5/31. All were nicely done.
The many photos were good and added to the narrative. There were many photos of men and equipment on the ground, ships at sea as well as many aerial photos.

In Aftermath, the achievements are succinctly mentioned as well as the costs in men, ships and planes to both side. The author believes Operation Dynamo was a successful evacuation but not a major victory that some historians passionately claim.
I would say the author is well versed on this campaign and was highly focused. This premise is confirmed when you look at the impressive reading list that is provided. If further reading is desired, this list will definitely help.

I gave this Campaign five stars but if possible a little less than five but more than four stars would have been allotted. Though the factual coverage and cartography was very good, the author delivers the impression the British and French worked well together and both Armies did their best during the campaign. In reality that's not the case. There was much friction between the two Allies and the British was secretive and deceptive with both the Belgians and French in the early days of their withdrawal. Both Armies weren't prepared or motivated. The British weren't really motivated as they were in the Great War and the French were poorly led. Another thing that wasn't mentioned was how the British treated the French that made it to England before going back to France. It wasn't the warmest of receptions. This is minor stuff, factually the book is thoughtful and well laid out.

If you haven't read about Dunkirk before, this book would be a good starting point. Its also a nice complement to the recently published book "Maginot Line 1940" by Romanych and Rupp. They're both freely recommended.

The evacuation of the trapped Anglo-French armies from Dunkirk during 27 May - 4 June 1940, known as Operation Dynamo, is a subject that has been often covered by historians and frequently distorted by chauvinistic biases. Most of the coverage has been by English historians who - while justifiably proud of what was an amazing rescue - tend to downplay the role of their French allies and the equally amazing German victory. Hitler called it "the greatest victory in German military history" which was not unjustified. In Dunkirk 1940, Douglas C Dildy provides an objective look at the evacuation and the battle for the perimeter, while trying to avoid the subjective potholes that others have fallen into. Having read Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's excellent Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man (2006), Dildy's volume is a nice complement, with better maps and some French perspectives. Overall, Dunkirk 1940 is a nicely-packaged piece of historical synthesis which provides an interesting and objective look at a well-known subject.

The best part of the volume is the five 2-D maps (situation maps for 26 May, 28 May, 31 May ; evacuation routes X, Y and Z across the English Channel; reconstitution and redeployment of British and French forces), which depict units down to battalion/brigade level. These maps were superb and made reading the text more comprehensible. There are also three 3-D BEV (the sinking of HMS Wakeful and Grafton, 28/29 May 1940; the Dunkirk perimeter is closed, 30 May 1940; defending the Dunkirk perimeter, 2-4 June 1940) maps, which are good. The three battle scenes by Howard Gerrard (a German PzKpfw 35(t) being captured at the Battle of Cassel; Stukas attacking ships in Dunkirk harbor; RAF Defiants attacking German He-111 bombers) are also good, although there is no French content in any of them. The author provides a very detailed 5-page order of battle that extends down to battalion-level, as well as including relevant air and naval units. In addition, he provides a 3-page chronology and a 3-page bibliography. These features are nice extras, but they also detract from the coverage he can give to other sections, which may discomfit some readers. The photos in the volume are very good, but mostly from the Imperial War Museum - none from the Bundesarchiv or French sources. Readers might note that there is not a single photo of British prisoners in the volume, despite the fact that thousands were captured.

The volume begins with a brief introduction that lays out the situation of the Allied armies in Belgium on May 25,1940 and how they came to be surrounded, but the author wisely does not belabor events prior to this point. In opposing commanders, he points out the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) commander Lord Gort, was unfairly maligned by his subordinate Alan Brooke and was a solid, effective leader. The author also provides capsule bios on Vice Admiral Betram Ramsay, the French General Fagalde and the German General von Kuchler. The only section of this volume that is a bit weak is the 7-page section on opposing forces, which provides composition and disposition of forces available, but little sense of their respective capabilities. Most of the Allied units were much reduced in men and equipment after two weeks of prior combat. Opposing plans are dealt with in a 4-page section; the main take-away is that the British excelled at developing an ad hoc evacuation plan, while the Germans had no real plan for crushing the Dunkirk pocket and just muddled through.

The campaign itself is covered in 53 pages and flows in a day-by-day structure. This type of short, compact campaign is very well suited to the Osprey format and the author's narrative provides at least as much detail on the battle - if not more - than standard histories such as Alistair Horne's To Lose a Battle. It was particularly gratifying to see that considerable French content is worked into the volume, far more than allowed in most British-written histories. Indeed, the author makes clear that French troops fought very well on the Dunkirk perimeter - repulsing multiple German attacks - and played a key role in the rearguard which allowed the BEF to escape. The author covers the Germans fairly well, although it does not appear that he consulted any original records at NARA, which might have added some additional depth. I was surprised to see that he made no mention of the Wormhoudt massacre on 28 May, where SS troops murdered 80 British POWs, since this incident indicates the no-quarter nature of some of the fighting around Dunkirk. On the other hand, the author handles German air attacks on British shipping with objective precision.

The volume ends with a summary of how many troops were evacuated (but no indications about troops or equipment losses) and how the BEF troops were sent to reconstitute in camps around London while the French troops were sent back to France (to surrender in two weeks). This section is also a bit weak, because it makes little assessment of the German victory. Indeed, the Germans captured an enormous amount of intact trucks, support equipment and fuel around Dunkirk that greatly helped them to outfit their army for Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Furthermore, the BEF divisions that returned to England were badly beat-up and would be of little use for combat operations for a year at least, either at home or in the Mediterranean theater. Hugh Sebag-Montefiore made the point that a large percent of the British troops evacuated from Dunkirk were the rear-area support types and a large number of RAF ground crew, but many of the infantry battles were decimated in the rearguard actions and returned to England as skeletons. This volume does a very good job in what the author chooses to cover, which is a straight-up battle narrative, but there is little space left to address the implications of Dunkirk for the British, French or Germans.

Dunkirk 1940: Operation Dynamo is a 'must' for any detailed World War II collection, filling a gap in the publisher's coverage of the war and focusing entirely on the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, when German forces successfully cut off several units of Allied troops, stranding them in Dunkirk. In contrast to other histories, this provides a description of the operation from a strategy perspective, detailing overlapping struggles and results to fill in many gaps. Any military library specializing in World War II needs this.