![]() You felt so completely exposed on the beach. ![]() While these attacks were in progress, the Stukas were diving, zooming, screeching and wheeling over our heads like a flock of huge infernal seagulls. The alarm this caused on 29 May, the worst day of the evacuation in terms of British shipping sunk by the Luftwaffe, was recorded by gunner Lieutenant Elliman, who reached Malo-les-Bains beach, north-east of the main Dunkirk jetty, known as the “mole”, that afternoon: “The destroyers pumped shells into the air, and disappeared behind 80ft high walls of spray thrown up by near misses. But cinemagoers queueing up to see Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, when it opens on 21 July, particularly those too young to have parents who lived through the war, may well not appreciate how close the exodus came to ending in ignominious disaster.įor many soldiers waiting to be rescued from the Dunkirk beaches, the first indication that their evacuation was not a foregone conclusion came when they saw that the ships that had been sent to whisk them away were being attacked by German planes.
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