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Written with a 70's counterculture point of view, oddly. I like my history unbiased. Yet another historian who underestimated the British BEF's capabilities and overestimated those of the German infantry. The German Panzer units were elite. The infantry was often reserves and many divisions were as bad as the French at this point in the war.

I liked this version of the evacuation even though the author doesn't have the reverence for the event that some have. The author considers it a successful evacuation but it was within a framework of losing the war. Factually this book is as good as any of the other four books I've read on the topic but this is the only one of the five that is as critical on the British Command, Government or Press for the actions taken during the secretive retreat to the coast, the deceptive evacuation back to England and the subsequent patriotic spin by the press.

The first seven chapters are preliminary to Operation Dynamo which officially started on May 26th. The author begins with a little prewar history describing the situation in Europe, showing Hitler's growing aggression in taking Saarland, Austria and Czechoslovakia while England and France looked on. After Poland was divided by the dictators in Sept 1939, military coverage and readiness of the three main belligerents, the special tactics of Blitzkrieg is covered. It goes on to describe the lack of training and morale, tanks, planes and other weaponry that confronted Great Britain and France. The poor defenses west of Sedan is always mentioned.
The author moves into the war, showing the speed of the Germans to break the Allied front line and how the British from nearly the start had to fall back toward the coast. The tactical coverage of those first two weeks is covered but not in great detail. The fighting on the Dyle line, Lille, Arras, the Aa Canal, Calais etc is covered but only in a general way. I have not found a Dunkirk book yet on the first month of the war that has great tactical detail.

Starting May 26th when Operation Dynamo was activated and for the next nine days, the author increases his depth of detail giving each day its own chapter. The coverage includes the fighting around the Dunkirk perimeter, the clashes in the harbor and the dogfights in the air between the RAF and Luftwaffe. As mentioned before the coverage is as good as any other book on the topic so if you're looking to read about Dunkirk for the first time then this book should be considered. If you have already read about the evacuation and can tolerate the criticism then you might want to read this somewhat righteous book also. I didn't find anything that would radically distort history or was objectionable.
There were only six black and white maps but they were pretty good in showing the axes of attack by the Germans and the shrinking bridgehead the Allies were defending. There were photos which were really good, showing the leading commanders for both sides as well as pictures of men on the beaches, ships off shore and action shots on the ground. There were no aerial photos.

Included in the narrative is an Appendix that tabulates the daily count of evacuated as well as by ship type. Part of the myth of Dunkirk is that hundreds if not thousands of sorties of private boats took part in the evacuation but it was only in the last two days that any of the small private boats took part. The author ends the book with Notes on Sources and an Index. The author doesn't cover the impact on the future prosecution of the war by the British from this successful evacuation which many authors cover and was a little disappointing.
If you can handle the author's irreverence you may see a more worldly view of this short war.

Like the author states in his introduction, many of us armchair historians think that we know history simply because we have heard the oral tales through the years; however, the truth lies deeper in the research. A British historian himself, Harman delves through the true story of the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. The author pulls no punches when dealing with the intrigue, the inter-Allied deception, the incompetence, the fear, the betrayals, and yes, even the heroism which makes the story of Dunkirk such a fond human one in the midst of a horrendous war. Sadly, I see that Harman's work appears to be out of print, but I recommend it to anyone considering the topic.

That Dunkirk represented a defeat for the British can surely no longer be doubted by anyone. It is, however, a fact that the saving of in excess of 300,000 British and French troops DID, whatever Mr Harman suggests, allow Britain to continue the war against ... Germany after the fall of France. Only in that context can the rather jaundiced term "miracle" be applied. Nevertheless at this stage the lack of a decisive victory for [Germany's] forces could well be considered a victory in a larger sense.
Mr Harman may well have researched this book thoroughly, but unfortunately he clearly only presented the facts that suited his own case. His constant use of Lidell-Hart, an alarming self publicist, and Fuller, a notorious member of the British Union of Fascists, as major sources stand only to illustrate this point. Equally his one sided presentation of the facts regarding Churchill and Edens' deliberations, in an attempt to promulgate the Petainist myth of "Perfidious Albion", illuminates this as an unsafe revisionist version of the truth. It is notable that works of this nature spring forth when those accused are entirely unable to answer the charges presented.
A significant amount of research wasted...