On Monday the 27th of May Black Monday that is the day that Britain comes
closest to losing the war, by the end of the week by the end of the Dunkirk
evacuation when not the 45,000 men that was expected to be lifted in a best-case
scenario 338 thousand plus had been evacuated then suddenly you're in a
situation where actually complete meltdown and crisis has been averted and
actually suddenly the nation is pulling together and their strength is growing
and their ability to hold out and to keep fighting and actually eventually
possibly even overtake Germany in terms of strength it suddenly being realized
so that week is the pivotal week. Had Britain lost the war then Germany Nazi
Germany would have dominated the entire year of European continent as well as
Great Britain and their job in the Soviet Union might have been just that
little bit easier. Well most of the Dunkirk evacuation the British probably
didn't wasn't aware that it was happening it was only once they started
coming back and droves that they started to realise and there was a press embargo
on this until I think something like the 30th of May so well into the evacuation
and when the little ships were called out I think on the night of the 28th of
May you know the embargo was still in place so the little the little sort of
powers shallow-draft boats all around East Anglia and southern Britain they
were called out but you know please keep it under wraps that was basically the
message the British public were really really deeply shocked by the turn of
events on the continent because no one expected the combined alliance of
Britain and France and then lastly once the war began at once the Germans
launched their attack Holland and Belgium as well they thought that would
be enough and now there's a rule of thumb when you're attacking that you
need at least three to one material advantage and the Germans didn't have
anything like that what they were able to do was bring to bear that freeze that
important advantage at the main point of attacking Germans called the Schwerpunkt
this concentration of force but overall not at all I mean France alone had
double the number of artillery pieces had almost double the number of tanks
that had bigger better tanks I mean you know on paper they shouldn't
lost where it was where it was won by the Germans was in their speed of
maneuver their speed of operation helped massively by the fact that German people
were there were more radios in Germany per family than any other country in the
world including the United States mechanically they were way down the list
they were kind of way behind France way behind Britain and certainly obviously
way behind behind the USA but in terms of radios Germany had lots of them and
so they're able to harness that and of course if you have radios in your tanks
and your trucks and your tip with your artillery even with your groovy BMW
motorbikes and sidecars then you can all communicate with each other very quickly
I mean that was the failing of the First World War that people could would
exploit it you know it would break through but they couldn't exploit it
because they couldn't communicate get reinforcements now the Germans have done
that the French still don't have radios they're stymied by this slow methodical
top-heavy um command structure they don't have
many radios just a few they're dependent on telephones and traditional telephone
wires which then get cut by bombing by you know problems of war and they just
can't move and the roads are being clogged by refugees and what that means
is units are being ordered by dispatch rider who are often getting lost and by
the time that order has reached the place it needs to be other events have
already moved and so what's happening is the French forces are just stuck where
they are they're literally like rabbits in headlights like they cannot physically
move and what that means is the Germans can concentrate their best forces which
are a comparatively small spearhead to the long wooden shaft of the rest of the
German army and can take out those units in detail and basically envelop the
whole lot but no one was expecting that so back in Britain
everyone is just absolutely gobsmacked by this turn of events and you have to
remember that people have been seeing the Nazis on newsreels at the cinemas
and so on these huge Nuremberg rallies and that all looks incredibly
intimidating and scary and so they've already been put on a kind of military
pedestal that perhaps they don't deserve and everything that happens in France
just confirms their very very worst fears so there is general panic in
Britain and what happens during that dunker with
week is they panic nearly so much that they throw in the towel the driving
force behind that is Lord Halifax who is a foreign secretary who is urging the
War Cabinet to pursue peace talks through Signor Bastianini who is the
Italian ambassador to Britain and had they done that what Churchill realizes
who is only sixteen days into his Premiership when Operation Dynamo
evacuation begins what Churchill realizes that once you open that door
even just ajar it then blows wide open and you can't shut it again and you've
already signed your death warrant effectively you've crossed the Rubicon
of which there is no return and he was absolutely right but you know Halifax
was the most respected politician in Britain Churchill had and was recognized
as being a maverick with quite unsound judgment but actually
the irony is is the man who was known to be steady, sound, you know, the absolute
epitome of good sense was the one who was losing his head and the one who had
the reputation for being a maverick and unreliable was the one who was really
keeping calm and as he was able to defeat Halifax on the 28th of May and
win over first the War Cabinet the five-man war cabinet and then the outer
cabinet so Churchill's own strength was reinforced and with it came this start
of this wonderful oratory and his own self-confidence and his understanding
his geopolitical understanding of the wider situation was that yes the BEF has
been defeated but most of the men have come back which is a psychological and
morale-lifting victory even though from the jaws of defeat but also what
Churchill recognized was of the British Army was a very very small component in
its armed services the absolutely number one senior service was the Royal Navy
which was really important because obviously we're an island nation and
second was the growing strength of the RAF and the RAF was able to operate over
Britain with the world's first fully coordinated air defence system which is
something that no-one else had ever thought of doing and no-one and no one
else in the world had so France didn't have in the RAF when they were in France
didn't have that either but they do when they're operating over Britain this is a
massive shock for the Luftwafe and completely blunts them in the Battle of
Britain but Churchill realizes that actually
there's a lot in Britain's favor the Dominions the empire extra imperial
possessions in South America for example Egypt control of the Suez Canal this
huge Navy the world's largest merchant shipping Navy access to around eighty
eighty-five percent of the world's merchant shipping you know these are all
colossal advantages and yes the very very tiny army has been defeated but
sort of that doesn't matter in the big scheme of things because we have the
Navy we have access to resources and we can grow our army and we can fight back
we can rebuild our strength as long as we can hold on now we can hold it we can
rebuild our strength as German strength is diminished well the little ships
contribution was significant because it it showed this kind of it bound people
together and it became part of the legend I mean how many people they
actually lifted of course you know compared to you know a destroyer or a
cross-channel ferry or something you know it's a tiny tiny fraction but so
many people answered the call and you know lots of them sacrifice their lives
and it became part of the myth it became part of it very very quickly part of the
myth you know everyone recognized what they
had done and it from a morale point of view it psychologically it helped bind
Britain it all became part of this we're not going to be defeated we might have
our backs to the wall but everyone can play their part and it was this part it
played an incredibly important part in this concept of bringing the entire
nation together, that this is not just about our armed services this is about
every man woman and child in Britain pulling their weight and these people
these civilians answer the call you are morally obliged everybody else is
morally obliged to do their bit as well it really works so there so it's a
psychological and moral advantage of what they achieve rather than the
numbers of men that they were actually lifting off the beaches but you know
it's a fantastic story isn't it?