Dunkirk has been seen as a triumph and a disaster, there are many reasons to support both of these interpretations. The German Blitzkrieg caught the Allies by surprise. In April 1940 the Germans invaded France. The Allied troops were trapped between the Germans and the English sea. On 27th May 1940 the British government, led by Winston Churchill, started a plan called ‘operation Dynamo’. They wanted to evacuate the troops to Britain by boats and ships. Most of the soldiers were rescued, this can be used as a triumph but by them having to be rescued this shows that Dunkirk was a disaster.
Source 5 shows a cartoon in the newspaper in the time of the evacuation. The picture shows how organised the people were put into boats and ships. They write ‘to fight another day’ this points out that they were prepared. However this is not very reliable because source 8 is an eyewitness account from 1961 saying that there was no discipline and that it was chaos! Also that people were getting shot because there wasn’t enough room on the boats.
Triumph is shown in source 2, a daily mirror headline emphasising how ‘ bloody marvellous’ it was that the troops were getting evacuated. This shows families at home how everyone is fine and that the whole plan was a success. Another source that shows triumph is source 6 : a book published in England in July 1940 . it explains that all British were helping the soldiers- were
