All language subtitles for Battle Of Dunkirk From Disaster To Triumph

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[powerful music]

[engines whirring]

[narrator] In the spring of 1940,

Britain faced a military disaster.

Trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk,

the British Expeditionary Force

faced an impossible situation

as Hitler's army closed in.

[veteran 1] We went through hell.
The guts, the bleeding

and the men being blown to pieces

and the machine gunners
shooting them down by the hundreds.

It was absolutely dreadful.

[veteran 2] These Stukas
were fitted with sirens

and they screamed as they came down
to frighten you,

and they did.

[veteran 3] We were dive-bombed
all day long.

Dead bodies, and you just prayed
you were in the right queue.

[veteran 4] One of my friends
got hit in the head by shrapnel.

Both of his eyes were blown
clean out of his head.

He died almost instantly,
which was a good thing.

[E. Barry] They came diving down on us.
The soldiers said,

"What the devil
are you doing here, missus?"

They piggybacked me along the beach.

It looked as though,
potentially, for Britain,

the war was over
before it had even begun.

[mellow music]

[narrator] The core of the British Army
was on the brink of being eliminated.

There seemed no escape.

[H. Garrett]
We were on the beach for 48 hours,

no food, no water,

nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

You just hoped that they would miss you.

[bombs crashing]

[narrator] Operation Dynamo
was the climactic moment

of one of the greatest escapes
of all time.

Hundreds of British ship crews,

many in private boats,
crossed the Channel,

bravely plunging
into the thick of battle.

[J. Haward] The water was up to my chest.

Over came the Luftwaffe,

so we were like sitting ducks
in the water.

[E. Oates] My overcoat was permanently
wet from the waist down.

[H. Garrett] I could hardly swim,

but it's surprising,
when you've got to, you do it.

This hospital ship got blown.

This bomb went right down the funnel
and it blew to smithereens

and there were dead and dying boys
all over in the water

and the captain said,
"We cannot stop, gentlemen.

We cannot stop."

And then suddenly
we got into the Channel…

and there was relief, relief, relief.

We got to Dover
and then we kissed the ground…

and cried our eyes out.

[laughing emotionally]

[powerful music]

[bells chiming]

[narrator] In celebration
of the courage of the soldiers

and those who saved them,

this is the story of an epic escape

that must never be forgotten,

told by those who were actually there.

[H. Garrett] I have been to hell.

I think and dream of it
every night, every day,

of the days when I went through
so much to live,

and now, 99.4, he's still here.

Every morning,

wake up, and there it is.

I'm amazed I'm still alive.

I can dream every night about it.

[J. Haward] I'm the only known
living survivor of my battalion.

I mean, I was only one
of a million, wasn't I?

[H. Garrett] They're so forgetful today.

I talked to some people,
they said, "What war was that?"

You know, that's the attitude of today.

I mean, I go to the schools,
the kids have never heard of Dunkirk.

Nor have the teachers.

[J. Levine] Dunkirk is so important

in a global, military, political sense

that it's amazing to me
that people don't remember it.

Certainly until the film came along,

people had no idea at all
what Dunkirk was.

And even those who knew thought about it
as, you know, that little British bit

that happened before America
got involved and saved the day.

It's a hell of a lot
more important than that.

It's a universal story of survival.

It was a miracle in the sense
that so many troops got home

when, you know, on the face of it,

it didn't seem likely
that very many would at all.

The fact that the British got home,

meant that Britain didn't have to make
a peace treaty with Hitler.

Britain didn't have to surrender.

If the troops had been destroyed,

the war would have been over

and the consequences, well,
would still be with us today.

[woman] There is no glory in war.

It is just survival.

[mellow music]

[H. Garrett] I was born in 1918.

A pretty poor family.

My mother was a lovely lady

and they couldn't control me,

so they said, "He will go
to Dr. Barnardo’s homes."

So I went when I was five
till I was eight,

and then from there
I went to Norwood Children's Homes

for two years,
and I went to Sidcup Homes

and that was my early years.

And believe you me,
you can't understand life in those days.

It was pretty, pretty rough,
pretty rough.

[J. Haward] I joined
the Territorial Army at the age of 18.

Well, I joined it because
of the cheap beer and the canteen

and the girls liked men in uniform.

I didn't really join it
to become a soldier. [chuckles]

[H. Garrett] We joined
the Territorial Army at Brixton.

I was in front of the infantry.

My job as an anti-tank gunner
was to shoot the tanks.

[A. Taylor] We were cycling along
with my friend in Wimbledon Common

and recruiting sergeants stopped us:
"Would you like to join the army?"

We said yes.

He said, "How old are you?"

And I told him 16.

"Oh," he says, "You're not old enough."

I said, "Hang on a minute. No, I'm 17."

So he signed me on.

[mellow music]

[H. Garrett] A kid that age,

you think it's marvellous,
the uniform.

-[air raid siren wailing]
-[clock chiming]

[adventurous music]

[W. Churchill] We tried again and again
to prevent this war

but now we are at war…

and we are going to make war…

and persevere in making war…

until the other side
have had enough of it.

[sombre music]

[E. Barry] I was born in Belgium, Antwerp.

Then the war came,
of course we had to get out.

The Germans smashed
our house to bits

and, of course, we had
to leave everything behind.

I was only nine.

[A. Smith] War was declared
September 3, 1939.

In the end of September, I was called up,

so I was in pretty quick.

I was conscripted.

[A. Taylor] I saw a war was coming
and my father advised me

to get out of the army
and join the air force.

We had a medical for aircrew.

I was wearing glasses,
I failed the medical,

and saved my life

because the majority of my class
didn't live out the war…

so having glasses saved my life.

[soldiers chanting]

[A. Smith] You looked upon it
as an adventure at first.

We never realized, you know,

what it was gonna be.

[E. Oates]

Well, nobody could really, really
know, like, what would happen.

[ominous music]

[bombs crashing]

[narrator] World War II

was the most savage and destructive
global conflict in history.

In the wake
of the German invasion of Poland

in September 1939,

the British Expeditionary Force
were dispatched to Europe.

[adventurous music]

[J. Levine] The very beginning
of the war, in 1939,

you had the British Expeditionary Force
traveling out to France.

These were young men
who'd never been abroad before,

so it was an incredible experience
for these people.

They were going out on the boats across
and then train traveling across France,

you know, clamouring to get to the windows
to see what a foreign country was like.

Not much was happening,

and they ended up meeting French people,
eating French food,

doing all sorts of things
that they'd never done before.

And being away from home,

it was kind of an adventure
for these young people.

[adventurous music]

[radio announcer] Britain is slow to anger

and certainly never wanted this war.

But since it's been forced upon her,
she's fully determined to see it through,

no matter what sacrifices are demanded.

And those who are making
the biggest sacrifice,

the fighting men, are the most cheerful.

[upbeat music]

[adventurous music]

[E. Oates]

[A. Smith] We sailed across
on Christmas Day,

landed in Cherbourg
in France on Boxing Day,

so that was our Christmas.

[chuckles]

[glasses clinking]

[J. Haward] We went to a place
called Gondecourt

up near the Belgian border,

and I was in a machine gun battalion.

A lot different than being at home
with your mum, you know?

[laughs]

[A. Smith] As I was able to drive,

I was put into the Royal Army
Service Corps, which is all transport.

[adventurous music]

That winter of 1939

was a very severe winter, deep snow.

We were so short of supplies
and that was the trouble.

You were sleeping in haylofts

and you were given one blanket
between two

and it was freezing.

In fact, my pal and I got up one night
and had a jog in the snow.

We'd run as fast as we could
to try and get warm.

We were that frozen.

[narrator] Soldiers were issued
with food rations

designed to meet
their nutritional requirements.

[A. Smith] You were given
a tin of bully beef,

like a corned beef,
a packet of biscuits,

like dog biscuits,
and that was your meals for the day.

[J. Haward] These army biscuits,
you couldn't bite them.

You had to break them with something
and make them soft and swallow them,

so I said, "Yes, I'll have another one,"
and I nearly broke my teeth biting it.

They were so hard.

They say the biscuits have got
a lot of energy in them,

so I'll take their word for that. [laughs]

[J. Haward] Sometimes the cook
gave us what he called stew,

but best not to ask what was in it.
[laughs]

[narrator] The BEF
that went to Europe in 1939

was a totally mechanized army.

But with scandalously
inadequate training,

they were ill-equipped to fight
a superior German Army.

[J. Levine]
A lot of the troops weren't trained

because they weren't really soldiers.

For virtually all of them
it was the first time they'd seen action.

[J. Levine] It's an amazing fact, a lot
of these people had never fired a gun.

Literally never fired a gun.

[J. Haward] By the time we went to France,

we just about knew which end
of the machine gun the bullet came out of.

[A. Smith] All we did was march about.

[A. Smith] You're given
a bit of basic drill,

given a rifle,
a little bit of target practice,

and then I was allocated a lorry

and that lorry you kept all the time.

[B. Coot]

Well, James seems to be having
a pretty exciting time at sea.

There's no doubt
he's doing his bit all right.

Here we are at home, nice and comfortable,

sitting around the fireside.

Do you know, it makes me feel
I'm not pulling my weight in this war.

[in German] Heil Hitler!

[Hitler giving a speech]

[narrator] By May 1940,

things looked bleak in Europe…

as Hitler's army
unleashed devastating attacks

on France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

[bombs crashing]

[J. Levine] In May,
the action really began.

The Germans moved forward

and so did the British Expeditionary
Force move forward to meet them

at a pre-arranged point in Belgium.

They hadn't been allowed
into Belgium up to this point.

The idea was Belgium was staying neutral

and would only get involved
if it was attacked.

So once the Germans moved into Belgium,

so the British Expeditionary Force
and the French

moved forward
from their lines in France

forward into Belgium to meet them.

[A. Taylor] First place we went to
was Brussels

and the street we were in was empty.

It had been completely evacuated.

The civilians had just gone.

[adventurous music]

[E. Barry] We got on a train
in Antwerp and it wouldn't move,

so we got off and we walked
from Belgium to France.

We walked all that way.

[adventurous music]

[A. Smith] It was a beautiful day,
lovely, sunny sky,

little white clouds,
and we were in this French village,

and I was walking across the square

and out of a white cloud
came this German fighter

who swooped down a machine gun at me.

But he was a rotten shot. He missed me.

[adventurous music]

[H. Garrett] When Germany
started the Blitzkrieg the 10th of May,

that's when we first met up
with the Germans.

[A. Taylor] We went all the way
along the River Dyle

and the Germans were on the other side

firing at our guns

and we were firing at their guns.

So we had a Lysander up there
sending the information to me

and I informed the army,

so I eventually got their target
and shot the aircraft down.

[J. Levine] What was expected really
was a stand-off

like the First World War,
a war of attrition,

a war of very little movement.

People thought they would be
ending up in their own trenches

facing Germany in their trenches.

Because that's what they were used to.
But that's not what happened.

Because the Germans mounted
this incredibly audacious attack

through the Ardennes,
using their Panzer tanks,

and it just cut through the defences.

People didn't think they could get
through a forested area with the tanks,

but the fact was they did.

And virtually no defence was behind them,
so they just streaked through

and in a matter of days,
they had reached the coast.

[ominous music]

[J. Haward] We found ourselves
at a town called Veurne.

These Stukas would circle up
and then pick their target

and the leading one
would be diving down.

Well, we discovered that if you fired,

those who were circling
could see the flash of the guns

and they would probably bomb you,

so in the end we used to wait
until the last one was in his dive,

they used to come almost vertically,
and he couldn't alter it,

and that's the one we used to shoot at.

Shot one down, anyway,
that was quite satisfactory.

[H. Garrett] I heard that the Germans
were four miles away

and I suddenly saw a roadblock,

soldiers coming through.
It was the Guard's Brigade.

I said, "What are you buggers doing?

He said, "We've been told
to retire to Lille."

I said, "Well, I've just left there."

And he said, "Well, you'd better
hang about, see what's going on."

So my officer, he went and found out
that we've got to move too.

So from there we went to Arras, Amiens

and fought the Germans down there.

[narrator] The Allied armies were
hampered by poor communications.

With no common leader,
they often operated solely

with their own objectives in mind.

We didn't know where we were going
or what we were doing.

[J. Levine] The lack of communication
between the British and the French

in the build-up to Dunkirk,

neither side really knew
what the other was doing.

[H. Garrett] Sergeant Grover said, "Harry,
you put on that spot there with your gun,

and if any tanks come in to you with their
guns pointing forward, they're enemy.

If the guns are reversed,
they're friendly."

So I said, "Okay, Sarge."

So I sat there with my gun and I said,
"There's tanks coming, Sarge."

He said, "Well, shoot the bastards then."

I said, "Well, I can't see them."

"Oh, right, get on."

So I carried on and suddenly
they started firing at us.

Guns were blowing us to pieces.

I thought, "This is terrible,
this is terrible."

And then suddenly my gun was hit

and we were knocked out
for a couple of minutes.

And suddenly…

"Monsieur, oh Monsieur.

We're so sorry,
we thought you were the Germans."

These are bloody Frenchmen in this tank,

as big as a house, but we got
about 17 causalities then.

[J. Levine] The lesson that was learned
was that communication with their allies

would have to be far, far better
in the future and not only that,

the communication amongst themselves
would have to be better.

[narrator] The Allied defenders
were unable to match

the sheer might and ferocity
of the German Blitzkrieg attack.

Faced with superior air power
and a more unified command,

they were a poor match
for the German Wehrmacht.

[J. Delaney] The German Army
was better equipped.

It was most certainly better trained
and more experienced.

[J. Haward] All their armaments
were better than ours.

Their machine guns were better.
Their anti-tank guns were better.

Their tanks were better.

Always one step ahead of what we got.

They always had bigger tanks
that could fire farther distances.

They just stood out of range of ours
and just knocked them out.

We had rifles, but they weren't good.

[J. Haward] My weapon was a Webley 38.

When it was time to fire them,
it was time to get out of it,

because you couldn't hit a barn door
at ten feet with them.

[radio announcer] The defences
of Paris are airtight.

Enemy planes will find a barrier of steel

guarding the throbbing heart of France.

The bitter lesson of 1914

has resulted in the famous Maginot Line

where mile after mile

along France's eastern
and north-eastern frontier

are lines of steel
and concrete gun turrets,

connected underground
by vast subterranean chambers.

Here, entire armies can be quartered

in comfortable
and air conditioned surroundings.

"They shall not pass" is the historic
war cry of the French soldier,

and the scissor-like crossfire
of the Maginot Line

makes doubly sure that the new
World War will not be fought in France.

[sombre music]

[narrator] The Allies could do little
to stem the advance of the enemy.

In the town of Wormhout,
17 miles from Dunkirk,

British troops were overrun
by advancing German forces.

[H. Garrett] I saw the best
and the worst of war.

I had some wonderful friends
and my colleagues were so brave.

There was 100 soldiers
put in a barn as prisoners.

So the Nazis came through one evening,

and they machine-gunned and shot
every soldier in there.

And these men were murdered,

but fortunately Pulli and Callahan

were still alive
under the bodies of their mates.

And they stayed there
with all the dead and dying

and those dear ladies, farmers' wives,
put them in the grave.

[sombre music]

[J. Haward] I'll tell you one thing,
not all Germans were bad,

although we were trying
to kill each other.

And I don't suppose a lot of them

wanted to be where they were
any more than we did.

[A. Smith] The funny thing is
that I liked the German people.

They're a lovely lot of people.

It was just these Nazi troops.

[H. Garrett] I saw plenty
of Germans do, you might say,

acts of mercy to wounded soldiers.

They would always attend to them

according to the severity of their wound.

Regardless of what uniform,

whether it was grey
or whether it was khaki.

And we used to do the same.

[A. Smith] You know,
the ordinary German person

they didn't want to fight.

[J. Haward]
I always used to say to my men,

if you take any prisoners,

treat them as you would wish
to be treated

if the situation was reversed.

I mean, after all, they were human beings.

[mellow music]

[narrator] As Hitler's forces moved
through France at lightning speed,

the Allies found themselves
fighting against overwhelming odds.

[H. Garrett] There had to be dissidents.
I didn't see any cowards.

Well, I only had one, he was a driver.

I'm not gonna tell you what his name was,

but he was a proper ladies' man.
Curly hair with a little moustache

and his side cap on the side of his hat.

And he was a boaster.

We couldn't find this fella.

He went missing and I found him
lying in our slit trench.

I said, "Where have you been?"

He said, "I got lost."

And I said, "How'd you get lost?

Walking up in broad daylight
behind someone else?"

But anyway, that was it,

so we used to give him
the least responsible job

which I thought
wasn't quite fair, you know,

the least dangerous job.

I know he had a wife and daughter.

I said, "What would your family think
when you're branded a coward?

He said to me,

"I don't care what you say or do to me,

I'm not driving
this carrier up that road."

Well, the only thing you could do
was to stop their pay.

Not that we got much anyway.

And I wouldn't have minded
if he wasn't such a boaster.

When he was out,
"Oh, we did this, we did that."

I said, "You did nothing
except crap your pants."

I don't know
whether you call that trauma or what.

[narrator] It would be several years
after the events at Dunkirk

that military psychiatry

became an essential element
of medical provision.

[mellow music]

[E. Barry] Those soldiers
that come back from the front,

I know exactly how they feel.

I used to have a lot of flashbacks

but I never had any treatment or anything.

We never bothered about counselling.
You had to get on with it.

[H. Garrett] I didn't need counselling.

May I say, the men of those days
were a lot different than the men today.

Counselling? Kick up the backside.

Bloody counselling,
it's a load of rubbish.

There wasn't anyone
to give them counselling.

Well, not officially.

[sombre music]

[fire crackling]

[narrator] Outnumbered,
outgunned and outmanoeuvred,

the Allied defenders
fought a desperate retreat

as the Nazi war machine closed in.

[tense music]

[J. Delaney] The Blitzkrieg operations
for the Germans

have effectively encircled
the British Army in northern France.

[R. Willard-Wright] The speed meant
that they almost got to the point

of cutting off any exit.

[J. Levine] The effect of these tanks
streaking through and reaching the coast,

meant that the British Expeditionary
Force was effectively outflanked.

It meant that even before the fighting
had begun in any real sense,

they already were on the back foot
and they were going to have to retreat.

The British, from purely pragmatic view,

saw that the battle was lost,

they knew it was gonna end badly.

And they thought, "The only way
we can stay in the war,

is to get our men away.
Then we can carry on the fight."

[E. Oates] We knew things were boiling up,

[A. Smith] And the Germans
had circled us around.

It happened so quickly.

The only way out was by water.

[R. Willard-Wright] And by that time,
the word was Dunkirk.

That was the only escape
for the British soldier.

[bombs crashing]

[J. Haward] Along this road,
came this German staff car.

Patrol shot the driver

and the officer in the back
jumped out and ran away.

But he left behind in the car…

his helmet,

his belt with his Luger,

and a briefcase.

That was immediately taken
to the divisional headquarters

and they realized this briefcase

contained the plans for the German corps
that was to attack Dunkirk.

[R. Willard-Wright]
There were two days grace

which allowed the French citizens
to get out of Dunkirk itself

'cause it had been bombed heavily,

and the French soldiers to barricade it
so that they could defend it.

[adventurous music]

[narrator] The situation
was rapidly becoming desperate.

German tanks had reached
the Channel Coast.

The Maginot Line had been outflanked.

With the French and Belgian armies
retreating on each side,

there was only one option for the BEF.

Withdrawal to Dunkirk.

[A. Smith] I was driving
along this very twisty road

and there was a bridge that had been hit
and the road was completely blocked.

You couldn't get through.

So I stopped
and while I was looking at a map,

I suddenly saw someone coming up
with a revolver in his hand.

So I grabbed my rifle, ready to shoot

and then I realized
it was a British officer.

He said, "Where are you making for?

And I said, "That little village."

He said, "Well good job for you
that the bridge is down,

because the Germans
are in charge of that village."

And he said, "In case you don't know,

you're encircled,
so make for the beach."

So I drove back to where my
company was, but they'd gone.

[laughs]

[J. Haward] Montgomery was able
to shift my division to fill out the gap

where the German Panzers
were gonna come through.

And so we got to the Comines Canal
where we took up position just in time

before the Germans arrived
the other side.

We were there for about five days
holding them back

while the rest
were getting away from Dunkirk.

On the last night,
the Germans got around us,

so we decided someone had to go back
to our headquarters

and tell them what was happening.

So I volunteered.

So I ran up to this farm

and on guard outside
was a friend of mine…

and he shot me…

from a few feet.

But it wasn't serious.

It went through my shoulder,
right shoulder.

He thought I was a German.

And he said, "I'm sorry.

I aimed for your head."

Well, he was only a few feet from me,

and I said, "It's a bloody good job
you're a rotten shot then, isn't it John?"

[sombre music]

[narrator] Defeated and humiliated,

the Allies were backed into a corner.

Surrender seemed inevitable.

The war for Europe was assumed to be won.

This incredible defeat,

because that's what it was,
it was a huge defeat,

looked as though
it would wipe out the British Army.

If the army was outflanked already,

all the Germans had to do
was to curve round

and it would be completely surrounded.

And if it was completely surrounded,
how on earth

could it possibly do anything
but surrender?

[H. Garrett] We heard from the general
that they could not help us.

I knew we'd lost the war.

And you thought, "Well, they're going
to invade Britain now and that's it."

I didn't know how we could
possibly win at that stage.

We'd lost everything.
The whole British Army, all its equipment.

[narrator] Amid the unfolding chaos,

the BEF headed for Dunkirk.

[J. Levine] As the British Army
moved back,

it became fairly clear to Lord Gort,

he was the commander-in-chief
of the British Army,

that if Britain
was going to survive in the war,

there would have to be
some kind of evacuation,

and it became very clear that evacuation
could only take place through Dunkirk.

Because bit by bit all the other ports
came into German hands.

The only one that was still
in Allied hands, was Dunkirk.

Now the British soldiers, they
didn't know why they were retreating.

[E. Oates]

[J. Levine]
They were sent into the retreat,

thinking, "Maybe my unit's
done something wrong

and we're being punished
and we're being sent back."

They didn't realize for a long time

that they had been
completely outflanked themselves.

And so back they came.

[H. Garrett] We got through and I said,
"Aw, come on Ken, jump up."

I'd got a lovely big horse
and I put him on board.

I said, "We are going to ride
to Dunkirk on this."

We started to ride, I said,
"No, we can't do that.

That poor horse is gonna get killed.

Come on, off you get, let's go back."

Then we walked, walked, and that was it.

[J. Haward] We handed over
to French troops

to hold the Germans back
while we got away,

so we drove to the outskirts of De Panne

and we were told there was someone there
that would meet us

and tell us where to go.

Of course when we got there,
there was no one there.

So we walked into the sea.

I remember the water
was about up to my chest.

Over came the Luftwaffe
machine-gunning along the beach.

[bombs crashing]

There were no ships,
no boats at all there.

So they took us out of the water

and decided that each machine gun crew

would find their own way.

[A. Taylor] We came across a farm

and the farmer came out
and said, "Are you staying?"

And we said,
"Well, we're moving slowly."

And he said,
"Well, here's the key of my house."

He said, "Look after it as long as you can

because I'm going
and leaving everything behind."

And then the signal
came through, evacuate,

so we evacuated
and that was the end of that.

[E. Barry] We were
three weeks on the road.

We were in the farmyard
with all the animals.

We could help ourselves,

went into the nest boxes,
but we couldn't drink the water,

we couldn't drink nothing,
we couldn't have nothing to drink.

[H. Garrett] Hadn't got any food,
no water, nothing.

And I said, "Oh, Ebbie,
what are we gonna do?"

He said, "Harry,
there's an old bullock there.

We're gonna shoot him up."

He's going… [moans]

I could hear him moaning, poor old thing.

So we shot him and he cut some joints
of beef off him

and we had steak that thick, my God.

[E. Barry] We did eventually
meet the soldiers.

We were with the Cheshire regiment.

They were very good, they fed us.

We had a lot of biscuits,
hard crust things.

Horrible. [laughs]

[narrator] With the enemy on their heels,

the retreating army
continued to the coast.

[A. Smith] We were told
that if you found a forces shop,

just go in and help yourself,

because the Germans will have everything.

So I went in there
and I got some cigarettes

and my co-driver
who had never driven the lorry,

he got some whiskey.

He was a Scotsman.

He was in the back of the lorry, drunk,

and that was the last I saw of him
until I got to the beach.

[mellow music]

[narrator] As thousands of defenceless
civilians fled for their lives,

the soldiers witnessed scenes
of countless horrors.

[mellow music]

♪Oh my God♪

♪Are we doing this again♪

♪Are we really doing this again♪

♪Oh my God♪

♪I just can't believe♪

♪We really can be doing this again♪

♪Will we never learn♪

♪Will we never, ever learn♪

♪Will we ever learn♪

[J. Levine] There were so many refugees
on the road

and they just wanted
to get out of the way.

So this really hampered
the British retreat

because they were retreating alongside

hundreds of thousands,
millions, of civilians

who were also trying to get away.

So it's chaos, you know,
the roads are chaos,

the whole atmosphere is one of chaos.

What is going to happen? Nobody knew.

[E. Barry] We had to keep going,

but the French did suffer.

Oh, we saw
some terrible things there, terrible.

The dead bodies on the side,
it was terrible.

[sombre music]

[H. Garrett]
The terrible sights we used to see

of hundreds of people being murdered
and bombed and blown up.

[sombre music]

[J. Haward] All these refugees with prams
and horses and carts,

and, of course, the Luftwaffe,
they were machine-gunning

to cause chaos and block the roads.

They'd just bomb anything.

[H. Garrett] They didn't care.

We went through so much death,
rotten bodies,

men, soldiers, horses, cattle, everything.

It was absolutely dreadful.

We saw an officer laid out.

He was dead, lying on the--

"Oh," I said,
and all his little photographs

were hanging out
of his children, everything.

[narrator] Despite the horrors,

the soldiers had no choice
but to keep moving.

People crying, "Help me, help me."

It was a fiasco,
absolutely a fiasco.

When I saw those poor lads
being blown to pieces,

and you just ignore it,
you just ignore it.

You know it's happened and it's gone.

[J. Haward] It was really terrible
to see these women and children

being injured and that,

but there was not much
we could do about it, you know.

[H. Garrett] We couldn't save anybody.

When you're going through on an action,
you despair and you did your best,

but you know you had a job to do.

[E. Barry] There was a little boy
who came home from school

and he found his house had been bombed

and his mother and father were killed,

and he said, "Where's my mummy?"

Then he followed the soldiers with us.

[E. Oates]

[E. Barry] Oh, my feet were terrible.

The soldiers kept putting me
on their backs

because I couldn't walk anymore.

I was only a little kid.

Oh, it was awful.

Well, my father gave up.
He didn't want to.

He said, "I'm not going any further.
The Bosh can have me."

[music crescendos]

[narrator] Deep in a complex of tunnels
beneath Dover Castle,

the British began to formulate
Operation Dynamo.

[J. Levine] The person with the overall
control of the evacuation

was Admiral Bertram Ramsey,
who was a trusted old naval hand

and who was put in an extraordinarily
difficult situation.

He was working from Dover Castle.

In fact, working from the Dynamo room.

[R. Willard- Wright] And the message
came through here

that Operation Dynamo was to commence.

Things had to be done so quickly.

You hadn't got weeks to plan what to do.
It had to be done immediately.

[machines chirping]

[narrator] The recovery
was no ordinary military operation.

Admiral Ramsey devised an evacuation

involving over 900 vessels.

[machines chirping]

[J. Levine] The port of Dunkirk

had been almost
completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

[R. Willard-Wright]
It was almost unusable.

So all you had, was the beaches.

[J. Levine] The trouble was,
the ships were too large

to come in close to the beaches.

The beaches were very, very shallow.

[R. Willard-Wright] It was a flat, vast,

duney beach.

Which is great if you want to sunbathe,

but if you're trying to get
large destroyers up to it

and get men off the beach,
it's impossible.

And that is what they found.

What was needed, were smaller boats

that could actually ferry the soldiers

from the beaches to the larger naval
and civilian ships offshore.

[narrator] The British government
appealed for small civilian crafts

to join the rescue mission.

The operation would become the
biggest evacuation in military history.

[J. Levine] Desperate times
call for desperate measures.

[R. Willard-Wright] It came out
by radio to begin with,

and that was it, that's all people knew.

[J. Levine] It wasn't until very late on
in the evacuation

that the newspapers and the radio even
reported that there was an evacuation.

It was kept secret.

[J. Delaney]
It was all done in such a rush,

the requirement to requisition the vessels
sort of came overnight.

It was organized chaos

and everybody who could lend
a hand, lent a hand.

[J. Levine] A lot of the time,

the owners had no idea
that their boats were being taken.

[J. Delaney] If the owner
happened to be nearby,

then they could join in with the project.

If not, the Navy basically
went along and just took them.

[narrator]
Arriving at the outskirts of Dunkirk,

many of the exhausted soldiers
had not eaten for days.

[A. Smith] I drove 48 hours,

kept falling asleep at the wheel,
hitting the curb, waking up,

and eventually arrived at the beach.

[A. Taylor] I went into a cafe

and asked if we could have
some water in our bottles

because we had had no drink.

And the lady said, "I'm sorry,
we've got no water in Dunkirk.

The Germans have blown up the waterworks."

She said, "But I will fill it
with vin rouge."

So we had vin rouge for the beach.

[H. Garrett] I said,
"Look at that warehouse over there.

Look, it's empty, there's nobody there."

I said, "Give me your rifle."

So I got his rifle
and I bang, bang, bang,

about five shots with it, opened the door,

and when I opened up this door,
you would never believe this.

It was full of neat Jamaica rum,

loads of Carnation milk,

biscuits, everything you wanted.

It was gonna be left for the Germans.

[adventurous music crescendos]

[ominous music]

[narrator]
Dunkirk was a military disaster.

The loss of equipment
to the British Army was colossal.

[R. Willard-Wright]
As soon as they got to Dunkirk,

the soldiers were surprised to hear

that they were going to have
to blow up their cars, their tanks,

anything that they'd travelled in
to get there.

[J. Delaney] The vast majority
of the equipment

that the British Army had taken
to France with them, was lost.

All their heavy artillery,
virtually all their vehicles,

all those had to be abandoned in France,

because they couldn't get them back
across the Channel.

[R. Willard-Wright] They were told
to put sand into the tanks

so that the engine
would completely seize up.

Because they didn't want the Germans
to have any of their equipment.

But as every soldier has drummed into him,

they didn't leave their rifles behind.

[A. Smith] You were put on a charge
if you'd lose your rifle.

That was more valuable to them
than your life.

[A. Taylor] My 1500-weight van
went into the canal

with my kit bag, camera,

with some films
that would be worth a fortune now.

[J. Haward] We smashed up all the lorries.

We couldn't take them to England.

[H. Garrett] We took our machine guns
out the lorry.

Drove the lorries over the machine guns

till they were destroyed.

Then cut all the pipes on the lorries

and left them running,
but they'd seize up.

[E. Barry] There was
a big hotel on the seafront.

We went down into the cellar.

We dived in, you know,
and we saw other people in there.

And this woman she said, "Don't bother.
Come in", she said.

And there were beds there
and we laid there for a while,

and it was all right,

but we couldn't go
to the toilet or anything.

[ominous music]

We had a machine gun on the toilet

where they were firing,
keeping the enemy away.

But it didn't seem
to make any difference.

You couldn't do anything with money.

There was money
lying in the street, useless.

[ominous music]

[A. Taylor] After we got to the beach,
the Lieutenant said to me,

"You're air force and these are all army,

and if they get hold of you,
you'll get beaten up."

Because they could see
no support from the air.

He said, "But what you'll have to do,

take your shoes off
and put some boots on,

a mackintosh, and a tin hat."

So I was completely disguised
as an army chaplain.

[narrator]
As tens of thousands of soldiers

congregated on the sands at Dunkirk,

they were confronted
with scenes of destruction

they would never forget.

[J. Haward]
It was all on fire down the beach.

[H. Garrett] We got attacked
by the bombers

and the Stukas were coming down
and dive-bombing on the beach.

People don't realize but, my God,

you saw all your mates
being blown to pieces,

ships being blown apart.

[bombs crashing]

[A. Smith] You had big cannons going off.

[E. Oates]

[J. Haward]
We just had to lie in the sand.

It was all rather nasty.

[A. Smith] Forces and bombers
kept coming over

machine-gunning the beach.

No protection at all.

And you just sat on the beach,
nowhere to go.

So you just sat there
and hoped that they'd miss you.

[H. Garrett] We used to make
a dugout, we would dig up the sand,

put a tin roof on it,

and make a hole
so you could crawl in.

[A. Taylor] The part of the beach that
I was on, there were no officers at all.

We just had to look after ourselves.

[E. Oates]

[tense, rhythmic music]

There's bodies lying all over the place.

We had to bury a lot,

and where we buried them,
they put bottles.

And I didn't know till, well, recently…

they put the bottles there

to know where they were buried

so that they could take them up again.

[ominous music]

[narrator] Morale plummeted
to a previously unknown level

as the soldiers waited
without supplies or hope.

[propellers whirring]

[H. Garrett] For about four days,
I hadn't got any food,

no water, nothing.

[A. Smith] Forty-eight hours on the beach.

No food, no water, nothing.

[E. Barry] And we couldn't drink
the water, we couldn't drink nothing.

Oh, it was terrible.

There were people going out their minds.

Some just, I suppose, just gave up.

I don't know.

[ominous music]

[A. Taylor] The feeling of despair

was in your mind all the time.

You didn't know what was gonna happen.

[J. Haward] You were just numb.
You couldn't think ahead.

[H. Garrett] And we did, you know,
wonder what was gonna happen.

[narrator] As they waited under a hail
of bombs and machine gun fire,

the defenceless soldiers felt abandoned
by the Royal Air Force.

[J. Delaney] There was a general sense
amongst the army on the beach

that they had been abandoned by the RAF.

[B. Coot]

[J. Levine] The Royal Air Force
and Fighting Command

were being vilified
by the soldiers and sailors

who felt the RAF
weren't defending them at Dunkirk.

Every time they looked up in the sky,
they only saw Germans.

Where were the RAF?

[plane engine whirring]

[A. Smith] We had one RAF Spitfire
come across the beach

and everybody cheered, a British plane.

And this British plane came down
and machine-gunned us.

It was a Spitfire that had been captured
by the Germans

and the Germans were using it.

[J. Levine] Airmen who had been downed

or who were working on the ground, who
were trying to get back onboard ships

to go back to Britain,
they were basically turned away

or they were attacked by people saying,
"You're not getting on board.

You haven't helped us, off you go."

That's how much they were vilified.

[J. Haward] I thought that was
a bit uncalled for.

[A. Smith] We'd heard
when we came back to England

how the RAF were protecting
the troops on the beach.

Well, not on our beach.

[adventurous music]

[narrator] Weakened by losses
during the French campaign,

the RAF couldn't stop
the German air assault,

but they could hamper it.

[J. Levine] The soldiers and sailors

simply believed
that the RAF weren't there.

The fact is, it was really unfair
because the RAF were there.

[J. Delaney] The air battles over Dunkirk
were actually quite intense.

They were there, they just weren't
directly over the beach.

A Spitfire overflying the beach
is going at well over 300 miles an hour

and is gonna be over the beach
for a fraction of a second,

a couple of seconds at most.

The air-to-air combat that took place
to try and stop the Germans

from getting to the beach
was seven miles inland,

so it would've been out of the line
of sight of the guys on the beach anyway.

[H. Garrett] They were there.

Perhaps not over the beaches,
but a bit farther inland or out to sea.

[J. Levine] You had this
extraordinary standoff

and of course at the time
of the Battle of Britain,

the entire attitude to the RAF changed

and they became the nation's heroes.

[ominous music playing]

[narrator] As Germans divisions
pressed in on the perimeter of Dunkirk,

the BEF were on the verge
of annihilation.

Their fate balanced on a knife edge.

[ominous music continues]

[J. Haward] I'll tell you something.

When we were under all
that fire on the beach,

I don't think there were any atheists.

[H. Garrett] I never stopped praying.

[J. Haward] A lot of them
might've changed their minds

when they got off
but we used to have a saying.

We used to dig these small trenches
which we called slit trenches

and we used to say, "There were
no atheists in a slit trench."

You know what I mean,
when all this nasty stuff was coming up.

So that's just my personal opinion.

It was wonderful to see
so many men praying.

They've probably not prayed since,
but I did a lot.

[E. Barry] We were
in the cellar for a week

and they brought out baskets
with the rosaries in

and we all had to have a rosary,
and we all stood there and prayed.

My mother was very courageous.

She said, "If we get through Dunkirk,

we'll get through anything."
And she was right.

[ominous music]

[narrator] On 27th May, 1940,

senior naval officer
Captain William Tennant

arrived at Dunkirk
to coordinate the evacuation.

[ominous music]

Tennant realized, "Okay,
we don't have the port,

but what we do have
is this long breakwater,

this long arm, called the mole."

It was never intended for a ship
to come along side it, never at all.

It was just to stop the sand running
into the harbour and silting it up.

[J. Delaney] He immediately
saw the prospect

of tying ships up alongside this mole
and using it as a quayside

from which troops
could then embark onto the vessels.

[J. Levine] What he did was to bring
one ship alongside the mole

to see, you know, will this work?

And it did.

[ominous music]

[adventurous music playing]

[narrator] An armada of ships,

crewed by the Royal Navy
and civilian volunteers,

sailed through the treacherous waters
of the Channel.

Many would face scenes
they had never witnessed before.

[B. Coot]

[plane engine whirring]

[mumbles]

[plane engine whirring]

[J. Levine] And the majority
of the little ships that came over

were actually commandeered boats
that were taken across

by members of the Royal Navy,
and these members of the Royal Navy

very often didn't even know
how the boats worked.

[B. Coot]

[J. Levine]
The purpose of the little ships

was to take people from the beaches
onto the bigger ships offshore.

So, you know, they might do this time
and time and time again.

[B. Coot]

[adventurous music playing]

[E. Barry] We stood on that mole,

oh, we waited ages to get a ship.

They were shooting at us. Oh, my God.

[E. Barry] We kept waving to ships,
asking them to stop for us.

A lot of them passed.

Mummy had her nightie,
she just kept waving,

stopping the-- "I'm British."

[adventurous music crescendos]

[narrator] The sailors
came under merciless attack

by the Luftwaffe.

[R. Willard-Wright]
Ships were being destroyed

left, right, and centre,

so it was hell
that you were going into.

[J. Levine] A third of the ships
that took part

were destroyed or put out of action,

so it was a hugely dangerous undertaking.

[B. Coot]

[huge explosion]

[R. Willard-Wright] The dangers were many.

For a start, you had to know
where the minefields were.

They were minefields that had been laid
by Admiral Ramsey,

but they were enormous.

[big blast from landmine]

[R. Willard-Wright] You could be run over
by a boat that couldn't see you.

Or you could find
that your sea was afire,

because when any of these
large boats go down,

the engines explode and the diesel
ends up all over the surface.

You could easily be shot.

A lot of the people on the boats
that came back dead

had been shot by German aircraft
or they were being bombed out the water.

A lot of people
didn't survive the crossing.

As the first boats started coming in,

they lifted the boom up
and watched a boat come in,

half of whom were dead.

[B. Coot]

[narrator] As the battle raged in land,

across the sky, and into the sea,

all hands worked to the absolute limits
of their endurance.

[A. Smith] Well, I was in full uniform.

I just waded out up to me neck in water,

'cause I saw this ship,
and it was a paddle steamer.

I got hold of a rope,
was pulled on board,

and that was the last thing I remember.

I just passed out completely.

When I come to,
they'd carried me downstairs

where the boilers were,

in me uniform soaking wet,
drying out by the boilers.

[planes droning]

[J. Haward] We saw a coaster
and it was on its side

and it appeared to be on fire.

There was all this smoke coming from it,

but we saw some people getting on it
and so we went and explored.

They were burning oily rags
to make out it was on fire,

so we got on the boat and this boat
must have been used for taking coal.

It was all coal dust.

Every time a shell or bomb burst,
all this coal dust came out

and dare I say we were looking
like the black and white minstrels.

[adventurous music]

[H. Garrett] Everybody was trying
to get out somehow.

And then the little ships came over,
picked up a lot of people.

"Come on, you blokes, next stop Dover."

We were absolutely thrilled.

And you were then praying
and praying and praying

to get back to Dover.

[A. Taylor] We got to the mole
and eventually we got to a fishing trawler

called The Lord Gray.

And he counted us on and he said,
"That's enough now, off you go."

So I laid down
and went to sleep straight away.

[E. Oates]

[bombs crashing]

[E. Barry] My mother had the sense,

she said, "We're not going
for the big ships."

Because they were bombing
them like billy-o.

So we got on this little oil tanker
called The Sutton.

We had the captain's cabin,

and we were told
we could be bombed any minute.

It was so dangerous to get through
all this debris and everything.

We had to go through fire to get out.

[H. Garrett] The bombs were coming down

and the machine guns
were being fired at us all through.

Some got sank, some got away with it.

Bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing.

You cannot believe hell,
least you can be, if you're in it.

And with all the baloney in what people
are saying about not being scared,

you can't help being scared.

And you were then praying and praying
and praying to get back to Dover.

What happened?
We got back to Dover.

It was wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful, Shangri-La.

Daylight.

We were shattered, absolutely shattered,

but what a feeling it was
to know we were back in England.

[triumphant music playing]

[coughs] I can still feel it.

[J. Haward]
I can only say it was a miracle

and we were just happy to be alive.

[A. Smith] Our company was 107 strong

and there was just 31 we got back,
over 107.

[sombre music]

[narrator] The British Army

who had left the shores of France
in the depths of despair,

were welcomed home
as conquering heroes.

[cheers and applause]

[H. Garrett] We'd just lost a battle,
but these people in England

were treating us like heroes.

[A. Smith] The thing that
I can still see to this day,

doesn't sound very much, I know,
but it was amazing.

As we came into Harwich,

there were hundreds
of women on the docks

and they'd all obviously been told,

"As soon as the ships start coming off,
grab a soldier and look after him."

[J. Haward] Standing on the quayside
were all these lovely ladies

and they all wanted to get hold
of the wounded hero, me.

And I was in more trouble
from these ladies from the WVS

than any bloody German.

They were all trying to grab me.

The medical officer said,
"You'll still warm, you'll do."

[laughs]

[A. Smith] Some lady got a hold of my arm,
took me into a hangar,

gave me some tea and sandwiches,

My co-driver, he survived,

and he was telling everybody
that I saved his life.

Well, I didn't really.

I was driving the lorry,
he was in the back, drunk

and I got him to the beach

and got him out
before we destroyed the lorry.

So in a way, I suppose you could say
I saved him

but not really.

[H. Garrett] When we finally reassembled,

I was surprised at how many
of my battalion had managed to get back.

[E. Barry] It was a miracle we got out.

The people were very good
when we got to England.

They helped us out, gave us clothes.

We had nothing, we had to be stripped,

and bathed, and fumigated,
and God knows what.

[H. Garrett] Dunkirk to me
was an epic of absolute bravery.

I went through hell to get out of hell.

I got back safe and sound.

[laughing emotionally]

That's how I feel.

[sombre music]

[narrator] Operation Dynamo

was the biggest military evacuation
in history.

The campaign narrowly avoided
a surrender to Hitler

and was a major turning point of WWII.

But, to the soldiers
who returned in 1940,

it represented failure.

[J. Levine] The British soldiers
who were evacuated back,

saw themselves as a sort
of battered remnant of a defeated army.

They'd been part of a terrible defeat.
They came home ashamed.

[R. Willard-Wright] These were heroes
because they'd survived,

and it meant that we had
a future in Britain.

[J. Delaney] What Dunkirk did,

was it enabled the British
to stay in the war.

It was a triumph
in that they managed to get away

far, far more people
than they thought they would.

It was amazing, you know,
how many they saved.

[R. Willard-Wright] They were only
expected to achieve

a maximum of 45,000 troops.

They managed, in the end, to reach out

and save over 338,000 men.

The British Army had survived.

[sombre music]

[triumphant music playing]

[narrator] A mood of national euphoria
captured the British public.

[triumphant music continues]

[radio announcer] The smoke of battle
hangs over Dunkirk,

that port just across the Channel

from which thousands of men
of the BEF are coming home.

The magnificent rear-guard action

carried out by the British
and French armies in the north,

is only equalled
by the splendid work of the Navy

in covering their embarkation
and bringing them home.

The soldiers return aboard warships
and vessels of all kinds.

They've been fighting unceasingly
for two weeks

and the whole world has marvelled
at their tremendous courage

and unshaken discipline
under brilliant leadership.

And never in the whole history
of her defeats and her victories

has Britain been prouder
of her fighting sons.

-[interviewer] Glad to be back, boys?
-Sure, yeah.

[sombre music]

[narrator] It would be a long road
to eventual victory.

World War II would continue
for another five years.

But the events at Dunkirk

made the next step
in that journey possible.

[J. Delaney] A lot of guys went off
on leave for a few days just to recover.

[A. Smith] We were all given three days.

[A. Taylor] Station warrant officer
came in and he said,

"I'm afraid, chaps,
Reveille here is at six o'clock,

but seeing that you were at Dunkirk,

you can get up
at half past seven or eight o'clock

and have a breakfast and that's that."

[cheers]

-[man] Hip hip!
-[all] Hooray!

[radio announcer] The men of the BEF have
been enjoying some respite from danger

after their heroic withdrawal
from Flanders.

Here in a rest camp
they dust themselves down,

sort themselves out,
and indulge in a little music.

♪Came to the battle♪

[A. Smith] My pal and I,
we were together all through the war.

We both survived Dunkirk.

But when we went out to the boat,

we sort of somehow
went in different directions,

and I assumed that he'd either got killed
or taken prisoner.

And he thought the same about me.

And next morning, when I was walking
up the street to get a breakfast,

and walking down in the opposite
direction was my pal Ginger.

And he suddenly spotted me and come
and put his arms around me,

like we were long lost lovers.

And we both thought
the other had perished.

I mean, the escapes I had
was absolutely amazing.

Ginger and I were in the cinema

and I can't remember
what the film was called,

but we were in there and, um,

got hit by a bomb,

and there was over
500 people killed in it,

and him and I walked out
just covered in dust.

[adventurous music playing]

[narrator] Operation Dynamo
has been the subject of multiple films.

The 2017 release
of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk

focused the world's attention once again

on the events that changed
the course of World War II.

I just think it's one of the great stories
in human history.

I am very excited to have some
of the veterans who were actually there

participating in the events.

We screened the film for them, and it was
one of the most daunting things

I've faced as a filmmaker,
to stand in front of those people

who were really there,
who are now well into their 90s,

and show them our version of their story.

[H. Garrett] We went to the first
showing of Dunkirk.

I went on the red carpet up there
at Leicester Square

and they were coming along
giving me a cuddle. [laughing]

[girls screaming]

[A. Smith] There were hundreds of people
behind the barriers.

Walked up
and they were cheering and waving.

It was outstanding.

[A. Taylor] It was a good film.

The only people who realized
what the Dunkirk spirit was,

were the people who were there.

No one else can imagine what it was like.

[A. Smith] I thought it was very good.

Just a couple of little minor things
that I could've faulted,

but in general it was pretty accurate.

I sat on my backside watching the baloney.

[laughs]

I thought, "It's gonna be a load
of American rubbish."

And I was quite pleasantly surprised.

I thought it was pretty accurate.

[H. Garrett] It wasn't my war.
How can you make what we went through?

You cannot do it.

[upbeat music]

[H. Garrett]
Prince Harry invited me to the palace.

What a marvellous man that he is,

but I was only the second
oldest man there.

That was a shame.

[laughs]

They treated us like heroes.

You are heroes.

You were and you still are.

Definitely, I hope someone gave you a lift
up the hill though.

[J. Haward] This lady, she pushed me
for a little while.

Then someone came up from the palace

and he said to me,
"Do you know who that was?"

I said no. He said, "That was Kate."

Well, I didn't know it was
'cause she was at the back of me.

[joyful music]

[A. Smith]
He was so charming, Prince Harry.

He came down and chatted to us all.

And he was very, very nice.

[J. Haward] I couldn't get me shoes on
'cause my feet swell

and I had to go in my slippers.

And I said to Prince Harry,
"I apologize for having my slippers on."

He said, "At least they're royal blue."
[laughing]

[H. Garrett] Prince Harry
thanked us very much indeed.

I would say we were heroes.

And I thank God, and well,
I still do.

[joyful music crescendos]

[adventurous music playing]