- – the Navy has toiled night and day, without sleep for scores of naval officers and men. Theypersist. The work of rescue never pauses. “The Navy,” says one observer, “is doing forty-eighthours work every twenty-four hours.”Praise in words is a poor thing for this huge and heroic effort. But praise we must offer for allengaged, and for the brilliant leadership in the field that shows us we have found a great soldierin our hour of need.Praise, then, for him and for them! “A bloody marvellous show,” says a high officer.“How, with such men, can we yield to the murderous enemy on our Channel?”Thus, forced withdrawal became a kind of victory according to the Mirror’s front-page lead-in.But what did the German High Command think of the so-called “Miracle of Dunkirk”? Inshort, Hitler’s generals thought the withdrawal of over 300,000 in less than four days an untidyeffort by their armies with an unsatisfactory outcome, an awkward signpost on the road toParis and beyond. No better writer than military historian Robert Kershaw takes us deeper into
the question. For greater insight and better understanding, read his,
“DUNKIRCHEN 1940 – The German View of Dunkirk”, by Robert Kershaw. Osprey Publishing,Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: 2022, 352 pages, hc; $30. Visit, www.ospreypublishing.com, or
make for truly gripping read.”
