Revisionism Real History

NEWS DESK MICHAEL WALSH - NO EMBARGO / 4th JUNE 2000

DUNKIRK WELL MYTH AGAIN

The media hype surrounding the evacuation of 338,000 allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk perpetuates wartime myths designed to condition Englands populace to war. It wasnt so much Vera Lynns Well Meet Again as Well Myth Again. Nor was it as the Daily Mails propagandist Glenda Cooper claimed one of the most heroic events of the Second World War. In fact Dunkirk was one of the greatest defeats and retreats in military history.

Not surprsingly the events leading up to the Dunkirk debacle have been air brushed out of history Briefly let us remind ourselves of the facts. Britain was then ruled by Winston Churchill leading a coalition of parliamentarians elected on a questionable system of democracy. Unlike Adolf Hitler Britains wartime leader was unelected and by most people he was reviled. The Emergeny Powers Act was passed after Britain and Frances declaration of war against German on September 1st 1939. This authorised the Government to do virtually what it liked to prosecute war without reference to Parliament. (1)

From Autumn 1939 to Summer 1940 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was in France for one reason only. To wage war against the German nation that had never shown any malice or aggressive intent towards England.

BRITAINS WAR MACHINE UNLEASHED

By this time Churchills government had already declared war on peaceful faraway Rumania and Finland (try finding that in your history books), not to mention invaded neutral Norway. Only after eight months of English and French aggression did the German nation, alarmed at the increasing threat to its trade links and borders finally retaliate. Dunkirk was the result.

The much smaller German armed forces using the element of surprise and modern military guile quickly overwhelmed their British and French tormentors. The result was that 188,000 British and 150,200 French troops found themselves trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. One of the greatest ironies of history is that the man who came first to the defeated armies aid, even before the English flotilla of small ships set sail, was none other than Adolf Hitler.

The German leader talked in private to Field-Marshall von-Rundstedt who was accompanied by his two key-men Sodenstern and Blumentritt. Hitler was in a very good humour. He admitted that the course of the campaign had beenan admitted miracle and gave us the opinion that the war would be over in six weeks. After that he wanted to conclude a reasonable peace with France and then the way would be free for an agreement with Britain.

THE FUHRER PLEADS FOR PEACE

When asked why he had spared the complete surrender or annhilation of the stricken defeated armies The Fuhrer astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence and of the civilisation that Britain had brought to the world.

He compared the British Empire with the Catholic Church saying they were both essential elements of stability in the world. He said that all he wanted from Britain was that she should acknowledge Germany's position on the continent. The return of Germany's lost colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would even offer to support British troops, if she should be involved in any difficulties anywhere.

He concluded by saying that his aim was to make peace with Britain, on a basis that she would regard as compatible with her honour to accept."

Field-Marshall von-Rundstedt always in favour of agreement with England and France and assuming that Germanys magnaminous gesture would be reciprocated agreed: Well, if he wants nothing else we shall peace at last. (2)

Other German generals less inclined to trust Churchills dictatorship protested when hearing their prize was to be denied. Blumentritt said: "The German generals in charge were dumbfounded and outraged at Hitler's attitude in thus preventing them from pressing an advantage which they believed would result in the capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force. But Hitler was adamant in his refusal and issued the most peremptory orders for the German armoured forces to stay at a distance while the British embarkation went on."

Often the victorious German armed forces found their advantage denied by the more conciliatory Hitler but it was not unknown for them to disregard such orders: "During the pursuit of the British forces towards Dunkirk the Leibstandarte Regiment was ordered to cross the heavily defended Aa Canal and seize the town of Watten. On the afternoon of 24th, May, 1940, however the Fuehrer's Headquarters countermanded the crossing. General Sepp Dietrich simply disregarded Hitler's order and a few hours later his troops were over the canal. "(3)

AND WHILE THE TROOPS WERE FIGHTING ON THE BEACHES?

	"Dunkirk was a calamity of unprecedented pro-portions. Winston Churchill described it as a colossal military disaster. General Ironside, Chief of the Imperial General Staff went further when he said to Anthony Eden, This is the end of the British Empire." (Photo: German storm-gun-battery on the advance)

Paris had fallen but was otherwise unharmed. As the first German troops entered the city the German PK Sonderfuhrer reporter KiekhebenSchmidt wrote: The soldiers of greater Germany have conquerored Paris but only the generosity of German leadership and that means the Fuhrer, the Commander-in-Chief himself protected Paris from the fate of Warsaw. The German Press whilst remarking that the citys working class stayed at home in contrast, those with a bad conscience, the wealthy elite, the Jews, and other war-mongers had speedily deserted the city. (4)

Meanwhile back in Blighty the ambiguous Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas, the gold reserves of the Bank of England were shipped off to Ottawa, the Minister of Information Alfred Duff Cooper sent his son Julius to Canada - but failed to inform anyone. Parents who could afford to shipped
their families out to America or the Commonwealth. Royal Navy ships were placed on standby to evacuate members of the Royal Family and key members of the government to the United States. "In June, July and August of 1940, over 6,000 children took part in the exodus of the rich." (5)

"The working class began to feel, with some justification, that the rich had plans to get out whilst the going was good." (6)

DUNKIRK A COLOSSAL MILITARY DISASTER WINSTON CHURCHILL / THE DAILY MIRROR BLOODY MARVELLOUS!

Dunkirk was a calamity of unprecedented proportions. Winston Churchill described it as a colossal military disaster. General Ironside, Chief of the Imperial General Staff went further when he said to Anthony Eden, This is the end of the British Empire. At home the press was now rolling out what the noted war writer Phillip Keightley described as the first great myth of the Second World War. Fleet Street was busy turning ignominious defeat into a great British triumph. BLOODY MARVELLOUS screamed the Daily Mirrors headlines.

The Sunday Dispatch suggested that divine intervention had been responsible for the evacuation pointing out that after the English had gone to prayer the notoriously rough stretch of water had become calm and smooth as a pond. A fog had descended to shield our troops from the enemys air strength. Hallelujah! The more fanciful New York Times described Dunkirk as a hell as never blazed on earth before.

PANIC-STRICKEN TROOPS

Tales of derring-do were largely imaginary; units of guards drilling at the waters edge while awaiting embarkation, English officers bringing order to panic-stricken French troops at revolver point, of a company of Royal Warwicks refusing to leave the beaches until they had regulation haircuts and of dispatch riders putting on displays of acrobatics as the Stukas swooped.

There were no British war correspondents at Dunkirk at all. Alexander Werth, war correspondent for the Manchester Evening News, writing after the collapse of France, described his feelings of guilt at the soft soap he had been feeding his readers. (7)

It was only twenty years after the end of the Second World War did the facts emerge when the author Richard Collier published the results of his long researchers into what really happened at Dunkirk. Collier and his assistants interviewed 1,070 eye-witnesses. He also had privileged access to the papers of Lord Gort, the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force who had, apart from official dispatches, never written a word about Dunkirk. Lord Gorts dispatches caused a bitter reaction but have never been rebutted.

They told of gut-wrenching cowardice, of a hotel cellar in Dunkirk packed with British, French, and Senagalese troops singing, weeping and screaming drunk. He told of groups of men, deserted by their officers, prowling the town in a mood of savage violence, of a major shot dead through the forehead by another as the only way to prevent him from capsizing an already overloaded rowing boat, of a senior officer refusing to leave his foxhole, of a corporal of the guards keeping order with the use of a pistol. Richard Collier recounts how a Kentish police inspector told him of dispirited men hurling their rifles from the trains carrying them to Dover. (8)

Fifteen years after the wars end General Sir Harold E. Franklyn, a divisional commander at Dunkirk, complained that the evacuation had been over glamourised. He added that reports of merciless bombing and the hell of Dunkirk were quite ridiculous. The General said: I walked along the beaches on several occasions and I never saw a corpse ... there was very little shelling. (9)

In 1965 Britains most revered military historian, Sir Basil Liddell Hart dealt the Dunkirk Legend a final body blow when he wrote: Never was a great disaster more preventable. The General added that the German breakthrough reported at the time as being due to overwhelming superiority, was acually achieved with armies inferior in numbers to those opposing them. Even in tanks the Germans had fewer and less powerful ones than the Allies.

THE FRENCH BETRAYED

Dunkirk is always described as a British evacuation. In fact, the French Navy complete with its own armada of civilian and fishing craft, lost almost as many ships as did the Royal Navy yet carried some 50,000 allied troops across the Channel to safety. They complained afterwards that If Dunkirk was a miracle, why did it have to be a British miracle? Perhaps because shortly afterwards ships of the same French Navy would be shelled and sunk by the Royal Navy, the French sailors survivors machine-gunned in the sea by RAF fighters. One wonders how many of those French sailors were brothers, fathers or sons to the 50,000 French troops at Lille who, although surrounded, managed to hold off seven German Divisions while British troops fled towards Dunkirk?