50 Fun Facts About Dunkirk

C. H. Lightoller, who sailed his yacht Sundowner to Dunkirk, had been the senior surviving officer of which liner?

Titanic's second officer was 66 and retired when he crossed the Channel with his eldest son and a teenage Sea Scout. They brought more than 120 soldiers home in one trip.

Planners hoped to lift 45,000 troops from Dunkirk in two days; roughly how many were rescued in the end?

About 338,000 Allied soldiers reached England in little over a week, more than seven times the hoped-for figure. Only 7,669 got away on the first day.

Which English king, short of money, sold the port of Dunkirk to Louis XIV of France in 1662?

Charles II had held the town for only two years after his Restoration and judged it a costly liability. Louis XIV, his cousin, paid five million livres for it.

At De Panne and nearby beaches, troops waiting to leave Dunkirk built makeshift piers at low tide from what?

Abandoned vehicles were driven onto the sand in rows, anchored with sandbags and joined by wooden walkways. Men could then walk out to the boats instead of wading.

Among the troops rescued from Dunkirk were unarmed Indian soldiers of Force K-6, who handled which animals?

Mules and their handlers had come to France with the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Three of the four units got away from the coast, and one was captured.

Which director told the Dunkirk story from land, sea and air in a 2017 film featuring Tom Hardy and Harry Styles?

Christopher Nolan began filming in Dunkirk itself, timed to match the dates of the real evacuation. His fleet included twenty of the original little ships, piloted by their owners.

Massey Shaw, which rescued over 500 troops from the Dunkirk beaches, served London as what kind of vessel?

A fireboat built for the London Fire Brigade, Massey Shaw crossed with a volunteer crew of firemen and made three trips. She went on to fight the fires of the Blitz.

Which 2007 film of an Ian McEwan novel features an acclaimed five-minute tracking shot of the Dunkirk seafront?

Atonement captured the scene in one unbroken Steadicam take on the seafront at Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. The crew kept the third attempt.

Where did most of the soldiers rescued from Dunkirk in 1940 actually board their ships home?

The east mole, a breakwater reaching nearly a mile out to sea, was never designed for docking ships. Almost 200,000 men still left along it.

As the Dunkirk crisis grew, King George VI went to Westminster Abbey on 26 May 1940 for a national day of what?

Prayer was offered in churches and synagogues across Britain that Sunday, with the Archbishop of Canterbury leading the Abbey service. It told the public how grave things were.

What code name was given to the Dunkirk evacuation, which Churchill ordered to begin on the evening of 26 May 1940?

Operation Dynamo is often said to be named after an old generator room at naval headquarters, though no evidence supports the story. It was expected to last two days.

Which vice admiral masterminded the Dunkirk evacuation and went on to command the naval forces on D-Day?

Bertram Ramsay had been coaxed out of retirement only a year before the rescue. He was killed in a plane crash near Paris in January 1945, months before the war in Europe ended.

Which Victoria Cross holder commanded the British Expeditionary Force in France and ordered its retreat to Dunkirk?

Lord Gort dropped a planned attack to the south on his own initiative and pulled his army back to the sea. He later served as Governor of Gibraltar and of Malta.

Which future field marshal commanded the British rearguard at Dunkirk and sailed only once his troops were away?

Harold Alexander left aboard HMS Venomous late on 2 June, once he was sure every British soldier had gone. He went on to lead Allied armies in North Africa and Italy.

Which German army group commander issued the order that halted the panzers short of Dunkirk on 23 May 1940?

Gerd von Rundstedt feared for his exposed flanks and wanted to save his tanks for the next phase of the campaign. Hitler endorsed the pause a day later, and it lasted three days.

Which Luftwaffe chief asked Hitler for the chance to destroy the Allied armies trapped at Dunkirk from the air?

Hermann Göring could not deliver on the boast. Poor weather kept his bombers away on some days, and RAF fighters flying from England contested the skies on the others.

Which German panzer general reported the British tank counter-attack near Arras in May 1940 as five divisions?

Erwin Rommel stopped the thick-skinned Matilda tanks by forming gun lines that included 88 mm anti-aircraft guns. One of them knocked out 24 tanks in a few minutes.

Which king surrendered the Belgian Army in late May 1940, opening a gap in the Allied line beside Dunkirk?

Leopold III acted without consulting his government, and the prime ministers of both Belgium and France condemned him. British divisions had to rush in to plug the hole.

Winston Churchill became prime minister on 10 May 1940, the day Germany attacked in the west, replacing whom?

Neville Chamberlain quit because Labour refused to serve under him, and he advised the King to send for Churchill. The new premier was 16 days into the job when the rescue began.

Beneath which English castle were the naval headquarters that directed the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940?

Dover Castle's cliff tunnels, dug as barracks during the Napoleonic Wars, became a wartime command centre and hospital. A statue of the admiral who ran the rescue stands outside them.

Which type of Royal Navy warship, 39 of which served at Dunkirk, could carry about 900 soldiers on each trip?

Destroyers, not the famous little ships, did the heaviest lifting in the rescue. Six British ones were sunk, and many more limped home damaged.

Which paddle steamer, nicknamed the Heroine of Dunkirk, made a record seven round trips and rescued about 7,000 men?

Medway Queen first sailed in 1924 and survived the war. Saved from the scrapyard, she later served as a nightclub on the Isle of Wight before enthusiasts began restoring her.

Fenella and King Orry, two ferries lost at Dunkirk in about a day, belonged to a steamship company from which island?

Isle of Man Steam Packet ships brought home 24,699 troops, about one in fourteen of everyone rescued. Eight of the company's vessels took part.

Tamzine, a fishing boat under 15 feet long and the smallest craft at Dunkirk, is preserved by which British institution?

Imperial War Museum staff care for the clinker-built spruce boat, made at Margate in 1937. She repeated her Channel crossing for the 25th anniversary in 1965.

Which British liner was bombed and sunk off Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940 during a later evacuation from France?

Lancastria went down with thousands of troops and civilians aboard, the largest loss of life in British maritime history. Churchill suppressed the news at the time.

The siren-fitted Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, which sank ships off Dunkirk, is better known by which name?

Stuka is short for Sturzkampfflugzeug, which is simply German for dive bomber. The wailing sirens on its undercarriage were officially called noise devices.

Which Channel port did Brigadier Claude Nicholson's garrison defend until 26 May 1940, knowing escape was impossible?

Calais fell on the day the Dunkirk rescue began. Churchill later credited its stand with buying time for the army, a claim the German general Heinz Guderian disputed.

At which French city did surrounded First Army troops hold off seven German divisions until 31 May 1940?

Lille's defenders gave up only when food and ammunition ran out. The Germans granted them the honours of war in recognition of their bravery.

James Campbell Clouston, the pier master who kept troops moving at Dunkirk harbour, came from which country?

Canada was his birthplace: Clouston grew up in Montreal before joining the Royal Navy. He died at sea on 3 June 1940 when aircraft sank his launch on the way back to France.

Which Royal Navy captain, senior naval officer ashore at Dunkirk, searched the beaches with a megaphone for stragglers?

William Tennant landed with a naval party of eight officers and 160 men to run the embarkation. He stayed until the last British ships left on 2 June.

The Dunkirk evacuation took place during which six-week campaign of 1940, fought as German panzers drove to the Channel?

Battle of France is the name for the six weeks from 10 May 1940 in which Germany overran its neighbour. The armistice was signed at Compiègne on 22 June, 18 days after the rescue ended.

Through which forested region, which Philippe Pétain had called impenetrable, did German panzers strike in May 1940?

The Ardennes was left lightly defended because French commanders thought no large force could get through it. Three panzer corps did, and they reached the sea in ten days.

Which chain of French border forts, named after a minister of war, did the German attack of May 1940 simply go around?

Maginot Line forts were built to block a direct attack from Germany and push any invasion north into Belgium. The panzers struck just beyond the end of the main defences.

Where did Churchill first deliver his celebrated speech of 4 June 1940 on the rescue from Dunkirk?

The House of Commons heard it live, but the public did not: a BBC newsreader read out extracts that evening. Churchill only made an audio recording of the speech in 1949.

Officials gathering small craft for Dunkirk scoured which English river before sending boats downstream to Sheerness?

Thames vessels joined speedboats, pleasure craft and car ferries from across southern England, and some were taken without their owners' knowledge. Many crossed with civilian crews.

Which actor won an Oscar as Churchill in Darkest Hour, the 2017 drama set during the Dunkirk crisis?

Gary Oldman also took the BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG awards for the role. The film covers the war cabinet crisis of May 1940, in Churchill's first weeks in office.

Which 1942 Best Picture winner shows an English husband taking his motorboat across to help at Dunkirk?

Mrs. Miniver was the first film centred on the Second World War to win Best Picture, taking six Oscars in all. Its hero Clem crosses in a boat called the Starling.

Which Paul Gallico novella follows a solitary artist in an Essex lighthouse who sails his small boat to Dunkirk?

The Snow Goose began as a 1940 short story in The Saturday Evening Post and became a novella the next year. Its hero saves several hundred men before he is lost.

The name of the French port Dunkirk comes from West Flemish words with which meaning?

Church in the dunes describes the sandy North Sea shore where a fishing village arose in the tenth century. The town lies only 10 km from the Belgian border.

What code name did Germany give its planned invasion of Britain, ordered by Hitler six weeks after Dunkirk?

Operation Sea Lion was never launched, because the Luftwaffe could not defeat the Royal Air Force over England. Hitler postponed it indefinitely in September 1940.

Troops from which exiled Allied nation besieged the German garrison of Dunkirk from late 1944 until May 1945?

Czechoslovakia's armoured brigade kept the port sealed off while the main Allied armies pushed on. The garrison gave up on 9 May 1945, a day after Germany's own surrender took effect.

The Dunkirk Jack, flown only by civilian vessels that took part in the 1940 rescue, is based on which flag?

St George's Cross is defaced with the arms of Dunkirk to make the house flag of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. Only craft that made the crossing may fly it from the jack staff.

At Le Paradis in May 1940, 97 captured Royal Norfolk Regiment soldiers were shot by troops of which German force?

The Waffen-SS company commander, Fritz Knöchlein, was convicted by a British military court on the evidence of the two men who survived. He was executed in 1949.

What happened to most of the 100,000-plus French soldiers rescued from Dunkirk within days of reaching England?

Shipped back to France through ports in Normandy and Brittany, many were killed or captured within weeks. Only about 3,000 of the French evacuees joined the Free French in Britain.

HMS Wakeful was torpedoed off Dunkirk by a fast German attack craft of a type the Allies called what?

E-boats were the Allied name for the German Schnellboot, or fast boat. S-30 hit Wakeful on 29 May, a day so costly that the Admiralty pulled its best warships out of the rescue.

How did Allied defenders turn the canals around Dunkirk into a water barrier against German tanks?

Opening sluice gates all along the Canal Line flooded the low ground. Marshy country like this was one reason German commanders hesitated to send their armour forward.

Which novelist's BBC Postscript talks of 1940 drew 16 million listeners and cast Dunkirk as a people's triumph?

J. B. Priestley was so popular on air that only Churchill drew bigger audiences. Graham Greene called him a leader second in importance only to the prime minister.

From which Kent harbour did most of the little ships set sail for Dunkirk after being checked and fuelled?

Ramsgate was the main assembly point for the small craft. Nearly 43,000 rescued men also came ashore there and were sent on by 82 special trains.

Which British division, cut off from Dunkirk south of the Somme, was captured at Saint-Valery-en-Caux on 12 June 1940?

51st (Highland) troops waited at the harbour for rescue ships that thick fog kept offshore. More than 6,000 Highlanders went into captivity.

Which actor starred with Richard Attenborough and Bernard Lee in the 1958 Ealing Studios film Dunkirk?

John Mills headed the cast for director Leslie Norman. Ealing's boss Michael Balcon rated it the most important film in the studio's history.