A valuable source for those interested with the withdrawal from Dunkirk. Originally published in November 1940 it is an authentic account of the coasters and cargo steamers, yachts, motor cruisers, sailing barges, lifeboats, paddle vessels, destroyers, sloops and dinghies, that took their part and effected what experts had considered impossible.

'YOU WANTED TO SEE SOME ACTION - WELL YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT NOW. YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT NOW ALL RIGHT.' Friday 24th May, 1940 Private Johnny Hawke, aged sixteen, awakens to artillery fire. Hours later, Stukas scream down from the sky. Messerschmit fighters roar towards his regiment. Trucks burst into flames. Now men and mules lay dead and dying, severed limbs twisted grotesquely as blood soaks the cobbled streets. Young Private Hawke just wants to do his duty and serve his country. But as he - and his fellow soldiers - prepare to stop the German advance, there's only one question on everyone's lips. HOW WILL THEY SURVIVE?

Discover the heroes who saved 340,000 lives The Battle of Dunkirk has come to represent heroic perseverance in the face of adversity. By May 1940, Hitler's Nazis had pushed the Allies into a corner of France, almost to the sea. They thought the English had no choice but to surrender . . . but they were wrong. "We shall fight on the beaches," said Winston Churchill, the new English prime minister, and fight they did. Surrounded by German ground forces and bombarded by Nazi warplanes, some 340,000 British and French troops were rescued by a makeshift flotilla of military and civilian ships despite incredible odds. Photographs from the archives of TIME and LIFE magazines, combined with compelling text, put the mission in historic context and show how this massive operation unfolded. Discover true heroism in Time-Life World War II: Dunkirk, a remarkable collector's keepsake.

Describes the events surrounding the Battle of Dunkirk and the rescue of British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk during World War II.

The epic of Dunkirk has been told many times, but the numerous accounts from surviving soldiers and sailors were often a blur of fear and fighting with the days mingling into each other, leaving what is, at times, a confusing picture. In this book, adopting a day by day approach, the author provides a clear portrayal of the unfolding drama on the perimeter around Dunkirk, in the port itself and along the beaches to La Panne and the Belgian border.Reports from many of the captains of the vessels which took part in the great evacuation were submitted to the Admiralty immediately after the conclusion of Operation Dynamo. With access to these, and supported by the various records maintained by the Army and RAF, the author has been able to finally piece together the movements and actions of the many of the squadrons, units and ships involved.With the Admiralty reports and a mass of other firsthand accounts, many of which have never been published before, the true tale of the heroism of the rescued and the rescuers is laid bare. Operation Dynamo saw civilian volunteers and Royal Navy personnel manning every type of craft from the antiaircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta to the cockle boats of the Thames Estuary. The accounts of the men who crewed these vessels tell of being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe or shelled from the shore. There are stories of collisions in the dark, chaos on the beaches and tragic losses as ships went down. Similar tales are told by the men waiting on the beaches, defending the perimeter or flying in the skies overhead in a valiant effort to hold the German Army and Luftwaffe at bay.Yet this is ultimately a story, as Churchill described it, of deliverance, for against all the predictions, the BEF was saved to fight again another day. With civilians and servicemen working without respite for days and nights on end under almost continual attack to rescue the army, the nation pulled together as never before. It truly was Britains finest hour.

The Fall of France in 1940 has been well chronicled but numerous misconceptions remain.This fascinating and thought-provoking collection of essays on wide-ranging issues covering the politics and fighting on land, sea and in the air will be greatly welcomed by academics and military history enthusiasts.Topics covered include the preparations of the BEF, the failure of allied counter attacks, the air war, the Royal Navys's role in the campaign, the influence of the Battle on British military doctrine and the repercussions from the British, French and German angles.

The Nazi siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1943, during which time the city was cut off from the rest of the world, was one of the most gruesome episodes of World War II. In scale, the tragedy of Leningrad dwarfs even the Warsaw ghetto or Hiroshima. Nearly three million people endured it; just under half of them died, starving or freezing to death, most in the six months from October 1941 to April 1942 when the temperature often stayed at 30 degrees below zero. For twenty-five years the distinguished journalist and historian Harrison Salisbury has assembled material for this story. He has interviewed survivors, sifted through the Russian archives, and drawn on his vast experience as a correspondent in the Soviet Union. What he has discovered and imparted in The 900 Days is an epic narrative of villainy and survival, in which the city had as much to fear from Stalin as from Hitler. He concludes his story with the culminating disaster of the Leningrad Affair, a plot hatched by Stalin three years after the war had ended. Almost every official who had been instrumental in the city's survival was implicated, convicted, and executed. Harrison Salisbury has told this overwhelming story boldly, unforgettably, and definitively.

The true story of the World War II evacuation portrayed in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Day of Infamy. In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England. Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,” The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).