11. The “Miracle of Dunkirk’ owed much to adverse weather conditions
By late May, 1940, the British Expeditionary Force in France was defeated, driven to the French beaches around Dunkirk by their German adversaries. The War Cabinet decided to withdraw them to Britain, leaving the French to their fate. A necessity of the withdrawal led to the creation of the fleet known as the “Little Ships of Dunkirk” and the evacuation of 330,000 Allied troops, using ships of the British, French, Polish, and Dutch Navies and Merchant Marines. The evacuation took nine days. During that time there was less than three full days when weather conditions allowed the Luftwaffe to fly. Thick cloud cover, fog, and occasional heavy rains kept the German fliers on the ground for most of the operation.
The question of how much the weather aided the retreat from Dunkirk is evident from looking at the casualties sustained during the operations. Although the Germans were unable to attack from the air for most of the operation, 243 of the 861 ships used to evacuate the troops were sunk, nearly all of them by the Luftwaffe. Had clear weather prevailed the losses would have been much heavier. Churchill, canny propagandist that he was, credited the Royal Navy and the small boats for the evacuation publicly, though privately he acknowledged the weather had stymied the Germans for much of the operation. The remaining British troops in France, outside of the Dunkirk pocket, were evacuated via Operation Ariel during the rest of June, 1940.
