Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster Essay Example

Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster Essay Example Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster Essay Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster Essay Essay Topic: Dunkirk History Source d is a first hand painting of the evacuation of Dunkirk it shows the ships being bombarded with shells, bombs and torpedoes form planes, It shows hundreds of men on the beach rushing towards the boats in big swarms, proving the fact that they were very nervous and desperate to get on board and off the beaches, thee is a lot of smoke coming from the destroyed ships, in which thousands of solders and crews would have been killed in each boat! Source e is a photograph of troops waiting on the beaches, this photo shows the troops quite in order and disciplined, there is also no attacks from the Germans at this point so this must mean that the attacks werent on going and there were breaks. There are hundreds of solders in this single photograph so this means that there were thousands and thousands being evacuated. Source f is a different matter this is a point were the solders are being attacked on the beach, as they are firing at planes above, there is a very low possibility that they would hit the planes, although it could scare them off! This also gives you evidence that thee was bravery along the beaches as the English and French were fighting back. Source g isnt a primary account as this person was not on the beaches but he was the English minister of war of the time, so this evidence could be counted as first hand, he describes how the army is not destroyed but is there fighting as veterans as they have now have gained in experience of warfare and self-confidence. He is also saying that the British army has got Great Spirit and those they refuse to accept defeat, which is the guarantee of victory. This source is saying that the evacuation of Dunkirk was a great success but also a great disaster. Source H is two extracts from the daily express a English news paper that was published in may 31st, 1940 the newspaper articles see the evacuation of Dunkirk as a great success, as they point out the bravery of the ships crews daring the German guns, pointing out that tens of thousands back softly already but do not point out that thousands dead and captured, calling the fleet an armada of ships-all shapes and sizes, but that was only the first article the second is more of a rundown version as it is calling the army: Tired, Dirty, Hungry but unbeatable this is not far from the truth, also saying that there was a touch of glory in the army as it was see-able on the solders faces. Source I is an extract from a book from 1965 written by an British Historian so this is a secondary piece of evidence, he gives a lot of information on the evacuation but we cant be sure that it is reliable as he was not there, he believes that operation dynamo succeed beyond all expectation, He gives evidence of boats such as destroyers and says that there was a wide verity of boats helping, he proves that on the 3rd June the last men were evacuated, in all 339, 226 men evacuated but only 139,997 were French this shows that a lot of French were left behind either presumed captured or dead, it was a great deliverance as nearly all the B.E.F. were saved. All guns, tanks and other heavy equipment were lost, 6 destroyers were sunk and 19 were damaged, the R.A.F. had lost 474 planes. This extract is a great source of evidence for the question. Source J is my own information from various other sources, I found out that there was more or less no food, weapons or ammunition and this adds more info to the fact that it was a great disaster as well. All together 220 ships were destroyed these include, fire ships, travel, destroyers E.T.C. And from these destroyed ships smoke was seen in Dover. When the solders were getting on the boats they were tired, warn out, and a lot of them had gone slightly crazy from the sight of battle and death so as they were climbing aboard they were in a hurry, so they tried to scramble up the slippery sides of the boats which quite a few of people didnt make it and fell back into the smaller boats or water and had to go all the way back to the back of the line, this proves that the solders had turned undisciplined and non-organised, which caused a great delay and trouble in the evacuation. The planes used by the Germans were Ju87 dive bombers which whilst scattering bullets and bombs over the solders and beaches, these planes were designed to go very low at an vertical axis (they were able to pull up very quickly and avoided crashing), which to the solders looked like it was going suicide to hit them, this caused more despair and a loss of self-confidence. There were 2 very long wave breakers that were untouched the navy tried to bring up a large destroyer beside one and it managed to collect about 1000 solders every hour, this was a quicker way of evacuating, but it was bombed and the ship was destroyed but this proved hat it worked, on the second wave breaker they retried this and it worked again, the Germans did not destroy this one and it proved effective. In the begging when the B.E.F. was sent to Dunkirk in September they were sent with insufficient food and equipment, which pro-told the events, which would happen.