For many people in Britain, and not just those who grew up in the 1950s, 'Dunkirk' has become embedded into the national psyche as a grounding myth of who we are and how we conduct ourselves as a nation:
Our soldiers gone to France and Belgium to help repulse any attempted invasion of those countries by the Germans.
The Germans invade and our allies collapse in confusion.
We are forced to retreat to the French coast – the Royal Navy is coming to the rescue.
The navy doesn't have enough ships to bring all the men back.
Everyone who owns a boat, big or small, high-tails it across the Channel to bring back as many soldiers as they can carry.
Over 227,000 British men and 110,000 French soldiers arrive unscathed to a hero's welcome.
The above is the typical rough outline for many fictionalised accounts of the subject in books, comics and films.
Conversation with a child in the 1950s:
“What did my dad do in the war?”
“Your Dad was a prisoner of war. He was taken prisoner at Dunkirk”
A convenient short-hand answer to the question. The more complicated truth being that many dads taken prisoner in Northern France in 1940 were not at Dunkirk. They had been diverted from the retreat and were busy fighting against overwhelming odds to slow the German advance so that their comrades could make it through to Dunkirk.
For many of those who were taken prisoner at Dunkirk itself the boats had left. They had struggled to the coast once it was clear that all was lost, successfully evading capture on the way but it was too late.
Winston Churchill warned the nation that wars are not won with evacuations, but this heroic rescue of a huge body of men by ships and little boats looms so large in the national consciousness that the accompanying stories have to some extent become neglected.
Whenever we recall the Dunkirk evacuations it is important to remind people of the heroic, small battles at key points which helped to slow the German advance and about the death, devastation and destruction across Belgium and northern France witnessed by those who made it to Dunkirk and home.
The Bucks Battalion men, including those experienced both and my aim is to tell both stories, those who made it back and those for whom their destination was a stalag somewhere in eastern Europe.
At the same I pay due homage to Bucks men who reached neither destination, having made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
No Little Boats