Sinclair McKay writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and The Secret Listeners and has written books about James Bond and Hammer horror for Aurum. His next book, about the wartime “Y” Service during World War II, is due to be published by Aurum in 2012. He lives in London.
Dunkirk: From Disaster to Deliverance - Testimonies of the Last Survivors
eBook
-
ISBN-13:
9781781313848
- Publisher: Aurum Press
- Publication date: 09/18/2014
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- File size: 14 MB
- Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
- Share
- LendMe LendMe™ Learn More
When Churchill made one of the most inspiring speeches of the 20th century - 'we will fight them on the beaches' – some thought that it was his way of preparing the public for the fall of France. Others heard it as a direct appeal to the Americans. The Prime Minister was speaking in the Commons in June 4 1940, giving thanks for the miracle of deliverance, the harrowing and breathless evacuation of over 338,000 troops - British and French and Belgian - from the beaches and harbour at Dunkirk in the teeth of nightmarish German onslaught. Churchill was determined it shouldn’t be labelled a victory. He was already too late. Hours later, broadcaster JB Priestley was to call it ‘an absurd English epic’.
The last of the boatloads had returned to Dover in the small hours of June 4th. And the mythologizing had already begun – from euphoric American journalists to the thousands of women who lined up on railway platforms, crowding round exhausted soldiers as if they were movie stars. But was Churchill privately convinced that the Germans were about to successfully invade England?
Those days of Dunkirk, and the spirit, and the image of the indefatigable little ships, are still invoked now whenever the nation finds itself in any kind of crisis. But there is a wider story too that involves a very large number of civilians - from nurses to racing enthusiasts, trades union leaders to dance hall managers, novelists to seaside café owners.
And even wider yet, a story that starts in September 1939: of young civilian men being trained for a war that was already 25 years out of date; and the increasing suspense – and occasional surrealism - of the Phoney War. The ‘absurd epic’ of Dunkirk – told here through fresh interviews with veterans, plus unseen letters and archival material – is the story of how an old-fashioned island was brutally forced into the modernity of World War Two.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
-
- The Battle of the Bulge: The…
- by Hans Wijers
-
- The Day the Devils Dropped In:…
- by Neil Barber
-
- And We Shall Shock Them: The…
- by David Fraser
-
- Hitler's Wave-Breaker…
- by Henrik Lunde
-
- Of Courage and Determination:…
- by Bernd HornMichel WyczynskiCharlie Mann
-
- Mrs Adolf Hitler: The Eva…
- by Blaine Taylor
-
- Battle of the Bulge: The 3rd…
- by Hans Wijers
-
- Devil's Own Luck: Pegasus…
- by Denis Edwards
-
- The Berlin Raids
- by Martin Middlebrook
-
- The Pegasus and Orne Bridges:…
- by Neil Barber
-
- USN Battleship vs IJN…
- by Mark StilleAlan GillilandPaul Wright
-
- The Fall of Eben Emael:…
- by Chris McNabPeter DennisMark StaceyAlan Gilliland
-
- Heinz Guderian
- by Pier Paolo BattistelliAdam Hook
-
- Second World War Infantry…
- by Stephen Bull
-
- Battle for the North Atlantic:…
- by John R. Bruning
-
- Arnhem
- by R E Urquhart
-
- Pegasus Bridge: Bénouville…
- by Will FowlerJohnny ShumateAlan GillilandTim Brown
Recently Viewed
'McKay has done an excellent job of educating. A thoroughly enjoyable, yet exhausting and tragic, read. Sitting on the beach will never be the same again.-
-Moving testimonies of the last survivors.-
-Enthralling book brings home the importance of Dunkirk to the British people.-
-Sinclair McKay has uncovered the spirit of the indefatigable little ships. A powerful story of a mass mood, human nature and, above all showing how the expression -Dunkirk spiritcame into the English language.-
-McKay-s novel way of analysing the crisis makes for interesting reading. This is a worthy addition to the Dunkirk literature. Indeed, McKay-s approach may well play an influential role in how more conventional history books are written in future.-
'McKay has done an excellent job of educating. A thoroughly enjoyable, yet exhausting and tragic, read. Sitting on the beach will never be the same again.’
‘McKay’s novel way of analysing the crisis makes for interesting reading. This is a worthy addition to the Dunkirk literature. Indeed, McKay’s approach may well play an influential role in how more conventional history books are written in future.’
‘Features veteran interviews and letters, which bring the Dunkirk landings alive.’