The english were pushed against the wall after failed counter attacks and great strength of the germans. The english and french soldiers were under constant pressure and backtracking after losing key battles but there struggle to delay the germans ended up giving them munitions but blocking roads and destroying parts of runways the delay was enough to prevent total failure. As the hours neared the time of evacuation luftwaffe german planes flew over attempting to kill soldiers as they entered the boats, and mortar fire ripped apart the city of dunkirk and locations of the last fortifications. The most active combatants were the medical staff. Corporal W. McWilliam says “we were kept busy dressing stumps of amputated limbs and packing gauze soaked in eusol into the wounds” (112) the gruesome wounds were seen often and sometimes were not given proper treatment due to the mass number of injuries and the limit of bandages, pain medications and surgeons. The wounded were taken off the boats first and soon followed by able bodied soldiers. The civilian boats started to flood in as the battleships and destroyers were not able to keep pace with the german attack. The english were taken first then the french and other groups of soldiers were taken with all of the spare