J. B. Priestley

J B Priestley The Small Boats Of Dunkirk 5th June 1940

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JB Priestley - Pays Homage To The Small Boats Of Dunkirk broadcast 5th June 1940. The Dunkirk evacuation, commonly known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and the early hours of 4 June 1940, because the British, French, and Belgian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War.[1][2] The evacuation was ordered on 26 May.[3] In a speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill called the events in France "a colossal military disaster", saying that "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured.[4] In his We shall fight on the beaches speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance".[5] From 28--31 May 1940, an event known as the Siege of Lille involved the remaining 40,000 men of the once-formidable French First Army in a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armoured divisions, which were attempting to cut off and destroy the Allied armies at Dunkirk. According to Churchill, "These Frenchmen, under the gallant leadership of General Molinié, had for four critical days contained no less than seven German divisions which otherwise could have joined in the assaults on the Dunkirk perimeter. This was a splendid contribution to the escape of their more fortunate comrades of the BEF".[6] On the first day, only 7,011 men were evacuated, but, by the ninth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers (198,229 British and 139,997 French)[7] had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of 933 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole onto 42 British destroyers and other large ships, while others had to wade from the beaches toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder-deep in water. Some were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to the United Kingdom by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk", a flotilla of around seven hundred merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats—the smallest of which was the 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) fishing boat Tamzine, now in the Imperial War Museum—whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency. The "miracle of the little ships" remains a prominent folk memory in the UK.[8][9] Operation Dynamo took its name from the dynamo room in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, which contained the dynamo that provided the building with electricity during the war. It was in this room that British Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay planned the operation and briefed Winston Churchill as it was under way.[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation J. B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley, OM (13 September 1894 -- 14 August 1984), known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions (1929), as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls (1946). His output included literary and social criticism. Priestley was born at 34 Mannheim Road, Manningham, which he described as an "ultra-respectable" suburb of Bradford.[1] His father was a headmaster. His mother died when he was just two years old and his father remarried four years later.[2] Priestley was educated at Belle Vue Grammar School, which he left at sixteen to work as a junior clerk at Helm & Co., a wool firm in the Swan Arcade. During his years at Helm & Co. (1910--1914), he started writing at night and had articles published in local and London newspapers. He was to draw on memories of Bradford in many of the works he wrote after he had moved south, including Bright Day and When We Are Married. As an old man he deplored the destruction by developers of Victorian buildings in Bradford such as the Swan Arcade, where he had his first job. Priestley served during the First World War in the 10th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment. He was wounded in 1916 by mortar fire. In his autobiography, Margin Released he is fiercely critical of the British Army and in particular of the officer class. After his military service Priestley received a university education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. By the age of 30 he had established a reputation as a humorous writer and critic. His novel Benighted (1927) was adapted into the James Whale film The Old Dark House (1932); the novel has been published under the film's name in the United State http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Priestley J B Priestley ,The Dunkirk evacuation,Miracle of Dunkirk,Operation Dynamo,WWii,WW2