Qualla: Dunkirk Memorial

Dunkirk Memorial: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wernervc, CC BY-SA 3.0. There are 4,505 names cut into Portland stone here, arranged in two long screen walls that face each other across a quiet avenue in the town cemetery of Dunkirk. Each name belongs to a soldier of the British Expeditionary Force who died in France or Belgium between September 1939 and June 1940 and whose body was never identified or recovered. Some were lost on ships sunk during the evacuation. Some lie under the silt of canals that were flooded to slow the German advance. Some were marched east as prisoners and died in captivity without a marked grave. The memorial they share was unveiled in 1957, seventeen years after the events it marks - a delay that says something about how long the names took to gather.

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Image: Wernervc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dunkirk Memorial: What the Walls Carry

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The 4,505 names are not abstract. They include Marcus Ervine-Andrews of the East Lancashire Regiment, who won the Victoria Cross in the small hours of 1 June 1940 by defending a thousand yards of perimeter at Dunkirk - except that he survived. Most of those listed did not. One na...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Dunkirk Memorial: An Architect and an Engraver

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wernervc, CC BY-SA 3.0. The memorial's architect, Philip Hepworth, was Principal Architect for France for the Imperial War Graves Commission - later the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He chose restraint. Two long rows of Portland stone screens flank an avenue that leads to a small shrine in the for...

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Image: Wernervc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dunkirk Memorial: Mardi Gras 1957

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Grumpy, CC BY-SA 4.0. The unveiling on 29 June 1957 - the Sunday after Dunkirk's annual carnival - drew about 1,600 veterans and family members. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother sailed to France aboard HMS *Chieftain* and read the inscription aloud in the avenue between the walls. The Duke of Gloucest...

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Image: Grumpy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dunkirk Memorial: Going On

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ועדת חבר העמים לקברי מלחמה, CC BY-SA 3.0. The memorial sits inside the larger Dunkirk Town Cemetery, where rows of identical white CWGC headstones mark the British dead whose bodies were recovered and identified. The two are meant to be read together: the named graves and the named-but-graveless. The seventy-fifth annive...

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Image: ועדת חבר העמים לקברי מלחמה | CC BY-SA 3.0