The 4th June 1940 was the last day of the Dunkirk evacuation. 300,000 troops were taken off the beaches and brought back to the U.K. Many saw it as turning a disaster into victory. Winston Churchill made a speech to rally the nation. It is available to listen to at this web site:
This is a section of it -his now famous ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ bit:
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
It is this thinking that gave rise to the Dunkirk Spirit. In the face of disaster keep on truckin’ or “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” A phrase apparently attributed to both Joseph Kennedy (father of President John F. Kennedy) and Knute Rockne, football coach at Notre Dame University. These men were both born in 1888, although Kennedy live 38 years longer than Rockne. Kennedy died in 1969, aged 81 having outlived his sons John as well as Bobby, both of whom were assassinated. So what has this got to do with anything? I am not sure. Some disasters are late in coming and being tough doesn’t always get you anywhere. On the 4th June 1939, exactly a year before Dunkirk, the MS St Louis, a German ocean liner, was refused permission to land in the United States at Florida. The ship was carrying 963 Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany. The ship had already been turned away from Cuba, and had to return to Europe. Some 250 of the passengers later died in concentration camps. There is of course a book and a Hollywood version of these events, the Voyage of the Damned.
There is also some colour film, probably from German Army footage, of Dunkirk:
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