Destroying Dunkerque
What left Dunkerque in ruins? How were 90% of its buildings destroyed. Why did the people of Dunkerque desperately need help to survive and rebuild when they returned home after World War 2? Dunkerque’s destruction took place in two waves. It began with the Battle of Dunkerque. The Battle of Dunkirk was a military operation that took place in Dunkerque, France, during WW2. The battle was between the Allies and Nazi Germany. Part of the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk involved the defense and evacuation of British and other Allied forces to safety in Britain. It started on May 26, 1940 and ended on June 4, 1940. The popular 2017 film, “Dunkirk,” brought part of the battle to life for millions of people around the world.
Fast Forward From 1933
As the Nazi party’s political power grew, its leader, Adolf Hitler, became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Germany’s national government had both a Chancellor and a president. Chancellor was the most powerful position, with the president having little power. When the president of Germany died in 1934, Hitler combined the positions of president and chancellor into one office, “Der Fuhrer.” He took total control of Germany as dictator. Germany started the war in Europe on September 1, 1939, by invading Poland. France and Britain responded on September 3 by declaring war on Germany. The French army gathered in the north to stop the Nazis.
Britain sent its Army and Royal Air Force war planes (called the British Expeditionary Force, or BEF) across the English Channel to help defend France. Britain and France became known as the “Allied Powers.” In 1940, Germany invaded and quickly conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and The Netherlands.
Hitler used a strategy called blitzkrieg, or “lightning war.” First the Nazi air force, the Luftwaffe, attacked with heavy air strikes. Then came rapidly advancing foot soldiers with battle tanks, artillery, and other weapons. The attacks were fierce and fast, like a lightning bolt. They allowed the Nazis to overrun these countries quickly, with few losses.
Devastation Part 1
Hitler used the blitzkrieg to invade northern France. It quickly drove the Allies further and further back toward the North Sea. Soon the Nazis had them trapped. The soldiers could not retreat further. They were cornered, their backs to the sea. Britain, especially, was in a terrible fix. Most of its Army was trapped in France.
The British government now had two choices. Britain could surrender to the Nazis. That would have left the Nazis in control of Europe and on the verge of controlling Britain. Or they could try to rescue the Army by sending ships to pick up the soldiers in France and bring them home to Britain. Only one port in northern France would work for an evacuation: Dunkerque. It was the only remaining port that the Allies could secure and defend long enough for an evacuation. Dunkerque suffered terrible damage as the Nazis attacked in an effort to destroy the Allied army.
The damage came from nearly constant bombardment from the Luftwaffe, the Nazi air force, and from Nazi ground forces. The evacuation, called “The Miracle of Dunkirk,” used more than 800 civilian and military ships to ferry 340,000 soldiers across the English Channel to safety in Britain.
Devastation Part 2
With the British gone and the French army in tatters, France surrendered to the Nazis on June 22, 1940. Northern France spent the next four years under Nazi control.
Southern France was in the hands of a phony French government that actually was controlled by the Nazis. More damage occurred after the Allies invaded France on D-Day on June 6, 1944 and began driving the Nazis out. The U.S. Air Force bombed Dunkerque to free it from the Nazis. As Allied forces pushed the Germans back across France, Nazi soldiers took revenge by blowing up more buildings. The two waves of bombing and shelling left Dunkerque decimated.