The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo

The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo – by Walter Lord

I recently saw the movie (newly released when I wrote this review) titled “Dunkirk” and didn’t think too highly of it. It was well made, but the focus was too narrow and didn’t paint a broad enough picture from an historical perspective. I almost felt the opposite of this book. There almost seemed to be too much here.

What’s missing from this book though (and the movie) is why and how Dunkirk happened. Being that the event happened so long ago, I wouldn’t think most would be familiar of how the German army surprised everybody by burrowing through the Ardennes Forrest into France catching everyone off guard back in the Spring of 1940.  There was nowhere for the English and French (who, even though war was declared several months prior, were still new to the actual battlefield) to go but north, and they could only run as far north as the English Channel. They were basically trapped.

There is a lot of info packed into this thing from a personal perspective. The author obviously interviewed as many people involved as possible and includes brief snippets of all their stories. The soldiers (English, French, German, Belgian), the civilians, the private vessel owners, etc. and all of them get their 15 minutes of fame in this book. It’s rewarding to read about so many unique experiences, but it does get a bit overwhelming at times. One almost wishes that Walter Lord would have cut the personal stories by about 75% and told longer tales by fewer people. Or, better yet, maybe keep everything here, but not necessarily give us the names of every character involved. Sure, it’s great to see one’s name in print, but it tends to bog down the experience a tad. It’s simply a bit too much.

Another challenge, for me at least, is that I read this on a Kindle. It saddens me that older books never transition that well to the electronic format in terms of illustrations and maps. Having maps for a book such as this is crucial. Oddly, when one tilts the Kindle horizontally to be able to better read the map, the illustration shifts 90 degrees as well. So the only way to read the maps in this e book are to keep the kindle straight while aligning your head sideways.  Looks and feels uncomfortable.

I’m griping an awful lot here, but these gripes really are minor. This book is a good detailed account of the week or so where the soldiers were stranded on the beach while the British government was doing everything to rescue as many people as possible.  When one looks at how the circumstances all lined up, you can truly say that the event was literally a miracle.  Had a few of these events (weather, an abundance of private vessels, Herman Goering’s ego, etc.) been slightly skewed, Dunkirk could have easily been a catastrophe that very well could have lost the war for the allies.

The author also does a splendid job varying the viewpoints. We see the event from all different perspectives – friend and foe, military and civilian, and it’s easy to come away with a strong perception of how many of the events actually happened.

I’ve never read anything else by this author, but apparently this type of narrative (recounting tragic events) is a strong suit of his.  I would recommend the book, but I would briefly brush up on the history a few weeks prior to when the story actually takes place.