Dunkirk: the movie

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

If you have the chance to watch Dunkirk at a large IMAX movie screen I would advice you to do so. I went to the Arnhem Pathé cinema with a large IMAX screen and saw Dunkirk saturday evening.

A very impressive, wellmade, historical and human movie. Due to the impact of the large screen, very good movie quality, close up, medium shot and total scenes you get into the movie
and live in it during the length of the movie. A personal story of individual soldiers who tried to survive on the Dunkirk beach, in the sea and on boats that were constantly attacked
by German Heinkel He 111 bombers, and Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft, German artillery, U-boats and three Panzerdivisionen (PD) of Guderians XIXe Panzerkorps. The 2nd Panzerdivision conquered Boulogne-sur-Mer on May 24.
Calias fell on May the 27th mei and was occupied by the Wehrmacht 10th Panzerdivision and the 1th Panzerdivision swas ready to attack Dunkirk at May the 25th.

The Battle of Dunkirk was a military operation that took place in Dunkirk (Dunkerque), France, during the Second World War. The battle was fought between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As part of the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and Allied forces in Europe from 26 May to 4 June 1940.

After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. To the east, the German Army Group B invaded the Netherlands and advanced westward. In response, the Supreme Allied Commander—French General Maurice Gamelin—initiated "Plan D" and entered Belgium to engage the Germans in the Netherlands. The plan relied heavily on the Maginot Line fortifications along the German–French border, but German forces had already crossed through most of the Netherlands before the French forces arrived. Gamelin instead committed the forces under his command, three mechanised armies, the French First and Seventh Armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), to the River Dyle. On 14 May, German Army Group A burst through the Ardennes and advanced rapidly to the west toward Sedan, then turned northward to the English Channel, in what Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein called the "Sickle Cut" (known as "Plan Yellow" or the Manstein Plan), effectively flanking the Allied forces.

A series of Allied counter-attacks—including the Battle of Arras—failed to sever the German spearhead, which reached the coast on 20 May, separating the BEF near Armentières, the French First Army, and the Belgian Army further to the north from the majority of French troops south of the German penetration. After reaching the Channel, the German forces swung north along the coast, threatening to capture the ports and trap the British and French before they could evacuate to Britain.

In one of the most debated decisions of the war, the Germans halted their advance on Dunkirk. Contrary to popular belief, what became known as the "Halt Order" did not originate with Adolf Hitler. Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshals) Gerd von Rundstedt and Günther von Kluge suggested that the German forces around the Dunkirk pocket should cease their advance on the port and consolidate to avoid an Allied breakout. Hitler sanctioned the order on 24 May with the support of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). The army was to halt for three days, which gave the Allies sufficient time to organise the Dunkirk evacuation and build a defensive line. Despite the Allies' gloomy estimates of the situation, with Britain even discussing a conditional surrender to Germany, in the end more than 330,000 Allied troops were rescued.

It was personal to sit there for that enormous screen in that huge cinema hall with a large audience. The British were our allies. And some of these lads (guys) who died or were evacuated from Dunkirk actually had fought in the South-West of the Netherlands, in the Zeeland costal province where I came from, with French, Belgian and Dutch forces against the German Wehrmacht in May 1940. They fought longer there than in the rest of the Netherlands until May the 17th when the capital of Zeeland was bombed by the Luftwaffe. Vlissingen was heavily damaged by shelling (artillery fire, heavy machine gun fire and bombs) too.

Dunkirk is symbol for the feeling of the Dutch, Belgians, French and others that they were abandonned by the British. Ofcourse that wasn't true. The Brits and French were weaker at that stage of the war. It was great that so many French, Polish, Dutch, Belgian and other continental European (Army) troops, Navy and Airforce people managed to escape to Great Britain. Dunkirk was one of the many boat escapes to the United Kingdom from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries. In the Netherlands Dutch people who escaped to Englang were called "Engelandvaarders", literally translated as "England sailers" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelandvaarder ).

Cheers,
Pieter