Dunkirk 1940 Operation Dynamo

by Dildy, Doug; Gerrard, Howard

• ISBN13: 9781846034572
• ISBN10: 1846034574
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-23
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Summary

During the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, German forces successfully cut off several units of British, French and Canadian troops from supporting forces and supplies. Nearly 350,000 Allied troops were left stranded on the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, in France, amounting to what Winston Churchill called "the whole root, core, and brain of the British Army." Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in what was named Operation Dynamo, a total of 338,226 soldiers were rescued by hastily assembled boats to British destroyers and other large ships or directly back to England. This book fills a gap in Osprey's coverage of World War II, as no Campaign titles have yet covered the Dunkirk evacuation, and, unlike previous treatments of the subject, provides a description and assessment of the operation from an operation perspective. Author Doug Dildy relates the various overlapping and interconnected struggles--land forces vs. land forces, air forces vs. air forces, air forces vs. naval forces, all in a race against time--and their operational impacts on one another in one coherent, coordinated volume.

Author Biography

Doug Dildy is a retired US Air Force (USAF) colonel who spent nine of his 26-year career in Western Europe and retired with approximately 3,200 hours of fast jet time, almost half of that as an F-15 Eagle pilot.-+ As commander of the 32d Fighter Squadron, Soesterberg AB, NL, he enforced the No-Fly-Zone over Iraq acquiring over 100 hours of combat time in the F-15, making him an expert on F-15 employment, especially in operations over Iraq. -+
Dildy is a USAF Academy graduate with a degree in history and attended the US Armed Forces Staff College and USAF Air War College.-+ Additionally he has a Masters Degree in Political Science. -+As part of his formal military education, he authored several campaign studies.-+ He has also authored several articles for notable US aviation history magazines, including pieces on the Dutch, Danish and Norwegian air arms' defense against the German invasions of 1940.-+ He is a regular contributor to the amateur modeling magazine Small Air Forces Observer. The author lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Table of Contents

Origins of the Campaign	p. 5
Chronology	p. 8
Opposing Commanders	p. 11
Allied commanders
German commanders
Opposing Forces	p. 15
Allied forces
German forces
Orders of battle
Opposing Plans	p. 27
Operation Dynamo
The German plan to deal with the Dunkirk pocket
The Campaign	p. 32
The race is on, Sunday 26 May
The Panzers roll, Monday 27 May
The Belgians surrender, Tuesday 28 May
The Luftwaffe strikes, Wednesday 29 May
The Panzers turn away, Thursday 30 May
The biggest day, Friday 31 May
The Luftwaffe's last chance, Saturday 1 June
The French fight on, Sunday 2 June
The British are gone, 3 and 4 June
Aftermath	p. 86
The Battlefield Today	p. 90
Further Reading	p. 92
Index	p. 95
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.