Dunkirk 2017...
Recent Movie Watch: Dunkirk (2017, Harry Styles) If you want to understand World War II, this movie is a must see. It is not a war movie. It is not a documentary. It’s a very close-up tale of two young British soldiers who were trapped by the Nazis at Dunkirk and the men who made it possible for them to get back to England. Told through their eyes. It’s intense. Great cinematography. Excellent acting. Wonderful movie. It gets behind the myth of the miracle of Dunkirk. It shows the British spirit that enabled the British people to stand up to Hitler alone in face of a desperate defeat of the British Expeditionary Force in France the first year of the war. The British Army was surrounded and trapped along with what was left of the French Army on the beaches of Dunkirk. The Royal Navy did not have enough ships nearby to evacuate over 300,000 men, besides the beaches were too shallow for the big ships and there was only one long pier that would be slow work. The men would be either dead or POW’s. It was hopeless. This would be the end of Western Civilization in Europe. That’s the bad news the Admirals told Churchill. The Prime Minister consulted his two best advisors. His cigar and a brandy. “Get all the small pressure craft and fishing boats in our channel ports and send them to get the boys off the beaches.” “Impossible” said the admirals. “Make it work,” said the prime minister. It worked. The owners of the pleasure crafts and fishing boats were all for it. These were everyday civilians that saved the soldiers. About 700 boats took part. About 100 didn’t make it back. The Luftwaffe were strafing and bombing. The RAF did their best against the Nazi planes. This was The Battle of Dunkirk. About 25,000 soldiers died along with most of the civilian population of the French village. The Nazis were brutal. There is a mystery that historians have not been able to explain. The Luftwaffe was not there in full force. Many of their planes had been sent to other points along the Western front. On orders from Berlin. Why? It doesn’t make sense. Hitler was known to make some strategic mistakes. Some scholars have speculated that he wanted most of the English Army to be rescued. In his addled brain, he believed that if the English were driven off continental European soil by force, they would never want to come back. Well, they did five years later with their American cousins and drove straight to the heart of Germany while the Soviet army went straight to the heart of Berlin…without mercy. Hitler rather than conquer the world completely destroyed Germany.
The last scene of the boys arriving back in England over laid with the RAF pilot who ran out of fuel behind enemy lines will cause you to stop and take a very deep breath.
