Down in the depths of the history books lies one of the hardest moments of the second world war in Europe, the battle of Dunkirk. But wait! What is Dunkirk? Why is it such a big moment in our history? To understand this bloody incident, we need to go back to 1940 to find out how the Allies got there, why the Allies were there, and what caused the Allies to go there. We need to look at the ground, the air, and the evacuation itself inside of this battle to determine if it was actually a Axis victory or not.
The Ground
After round one of the Battle of France, Allied forces made of British, French and Belgian soldiers were pushed back to the beaches of a town called Dunkirk (Also known as Dunkerque, or Dunquerque) as the Axis powers swarmed France. Around 400,000 troops got stranded and forced themselves into lines on the beach to wait out the long ordeal. For the next 8 days they would stay that way, fending off German bombers with their guns. At the end of the 8 days of suffering, the Allies had 68,000 casualties and 80,000 French, British and Belgians captured.
The Air
Air superiority over the sky of Dunkirk is vaguely unknown. After the start of Dunkirk, Spitfires, Junker Jus, and BF-109s fought for the sky to bring their side to victory. Junkers bombing the beaches and the ships, Bf-109s attacking small ships and spitfires, and spitfires shooting down Junkers and BF-109s. The air powers at Dunkirk payed a terrible price. 84 Royal Air Force and 78 Luftwaffe planes were now destroyed into twisted heaps of charred metal.
The Evacuation
After news of Dunkirk reached the ports of England, over 750 private and civilian boats raced out to help get the British, French and Belgians out of their fiery furnace. For the next 8 days, 336,226 souls would be brought out of france on the “little ships of Dunkirk”, destroyers and other military and civilian boats. After the week and the day of evacuation, 6 british destroyers, 200 small civilian boats and an aircraft carrier had been sunk by E-boats, U-boats and german planes.
Without a doubt, dunkirk was clearly an Axis victory after they pushed the allies off the edge of France. But if it was on the air, the ground or in the evacuation, Dunkirk will always be an allied miracle. The ordeal in the fiery furnace of Dunkirk helped troops prepare for D-day and the battle of Normandy to push the germans back into germany leading them to surrender and the end of the war.
