Dunkirk: The Real Story

Dunkirk was in most ways a loss, the Allies driven by the enemy to the shore and trapped there to be picked off. But it became a moral and morale victory that has resonated for nearly seventy years. It is featured in two films this year. “Their Finest” depicts a fictionalized version of the WWII propaganda operation that selected the rescue at Dunkirk as ideal for reassuring the British civilians. And Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” is a gorgeously filmed re-telling that is grand in scope but intimate in focus. While some of the details and characters are imagined, the overall story is true.

To learn more about the real story of the heroic evacuation of more than 300,000 men, watch some of the documentaries about the rescue operation.

And read The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord.

Here is then-new Prime Minister Winston Churchill giving one of the most famous speeches of the 20th century after Dunkirk.

Never surrender!