Qualla: Battle of Dunkirk

Battle of Dunkirk: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wernervc, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two British battalion commanders end up working a single Bren gun in the dunes near Nieuwpoort - one colonel firing, the other loading - because the line in front of them has broken and there is no one else left to put a weapon into action. Hours earlier, on a different stretch of the same perimeter, the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards has restored order by shooting some of the men who were running and turning the rest around at bayonet point. The Bren stops the German assault long enough for the Guards to plug the gap. This is the Battle of Dunkirk - eleven days of defensive fighting that almost nobody plans for, almost everybody underestimates, and roughly 40,000 mostly French soldiers ultimately pay for with the rest of their war.

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Wernervc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Dunkirk: The Halt Order That Was Not Hitler's

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Horster, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. By 24 May 1940, German panzers were within striking distance of Dunkirk and the trapped Allied armies. The order that stopped them did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commanding Army Group A, and Generaloberst Günther von Kluge of the Fourth Army re...

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Horster | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Battle of Dunkirk: From Lille to Wytschaete

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Claus Ableiter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Some battles are fought to win. The Battle of Dunkirk was fought to spend time. Far south of the Channel coast, around Lille, Erwin Rommel surrounded five divisions of the French First Army; under General Molinié, they fought on for four days, tying down seven German divisions wh...

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Claus Ableiter | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Dunkirk: The Perimeter

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vieilalpin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Dunkirk perimeter was semicircular, anchored on the coast and shaped by a canal system the Allies deliberately flooded by opening the sluice gates. It ran from Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast through Veurne, Bulskamp and Bergues to Gravelines in the west - French troops holdi...

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Vieilalpin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Dunkirk: The Rearguard

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cassowary Colorizations, CC BY 2.0. When the last evacuation ship left in the early hours of 4 June, there were still soldiers fighting on the perimeter. Most were French. The French 12th Motorised Infantry Division - among them the men of the 150th Infantry Regiment, who had been based at the nearby Fort des Dunes...

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Cassowary Colorizations | CC BY 2.0

Battle of Dunkirk: What Was Left, What Was Lost

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown German photographer, Public domain. Ninety per cent of the town of Dunkirk lay in ruins by 4 June. The materiel left on the beaches was enough to equip eight to ten British divisions: 880 field guns, around 500 anti-aircraft guns, roughly 850 anti-tank guns, 11,000 machine guns, nearly 700 tanks, 20,000 motorcycles...

Read more: Battle of Dunkirk on Qualla

Image: Unknown German photographer | Public domain