What happened in Dunkirk in June 1940?
“The Battle of Dunkirk during the Second World War was the defence and evacuation of British and Allied forces in Europe from May 26 to June 4, 1940. A large force of soldiers were cut off in northern France by a German armored advance to the English Channel coast at Calais. 338,226 Allied troops caught in the pocket were successfully evacuated by sea to England. After the seven months of the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. To the east, the German Army Group B invaded and subdued the Netherlands and advanced westwards through Belgium. On the 14 May, Army Group A burst through the Ardennes region and advanced rapidly to the west toward Sedan, then turned northwards to the English Channel, in what Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein called the “sickle cut” (known as the Manstein Plan). 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 British Expe
