01x02 - Lightning w*r

[bunniefuu]

During the afternoon
of August 31st, 1939,

German forces made
their final preparations

for the invasion of Poland.

Air crews studied their targets.

Tanks moved to
their as*ault positions.

Then, in the early hours
of September the 1st,

German soldiers dressed
in Polish uniforms

attacked a radio station
on the German side of the border

leaving behind some bodies.

This was the "aggression"
which Hitler later used

to justify his attack.

At 8 that morning,

German troops pushed aside
the Polish frontier barriers

and mobile forces raced forward.

Two days later,
on September the 3rd,

Britain and France declared w*r,

honouring their promise
to stand by Poland.

But by then, the Poles
were in deep trouble.

They were not only outnumbered,

but facing a new form of warfare

for which
they were ill-prepared.

Blitzkrieg.

In 1939, the German army
consisted of 1.5 million men.

Its elite were the Panzers.
Tanks.

Six armoured divisions
and four light divisions

intended for reconnaissance.

A total of 2,400 tanks.

These had been designed
to break through

an enemy's defences
and strike deep,

cutting communications
and spreading confusion.

Enemy's strong points
would be bypassed,

left to the following
infantry to mop up.

The new German air force,
the Luftwaffe,

was also designed
for Blitzkrieg.

It had 2,500 aircraft
lined up against the Poles.

The most notorious was the
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive b*mber.

It was a form of
flying a*tillery

making pinpoint
attacks in support

of the fast-moving
ground forces.

The Poles could muster
just 600 planes.

On the ground
it was just as bad.

Poland's army was
just 500,000 strong.

It had only 880 tanks.

It even had


Lances and horses
against armour.

But it wasn't just numbers

that gave the Germans
their advantage.

They used their Panzers
in a radically new way.

As separate,
hard-striking units.

The Polish tanks were dispersed
to support their infantry.

The Poles' task had been
made even more difficult

by the German takeover
of Czechoslovakia.

The west of the country,
including the capital Warsaw,

was now surrounded
on three sides

by German-controlled territory.

This geographical
advantage was essential

to Germany's grand plan.

The task of
the first thrust of the tanks

was to create an
initial breakthrough.

But actually winning the w*r
depended

on deep pincer movements

designed to surround and crush
the enemy.

These would come
from Army Group North

under General Fedor von Bock.

He would launch two thrusts

from northeast Germany
and east Prussia.

Army Group South under
General Gerd von Rundstedt

would launch two more
from Silesia and Slovakia.

The aim would be
for the pincers to meet

near Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk.

From the start it went well
for the Germans.

Polish air force was
effectively eliminated

within the first two days.

The Panzers cut through
and struck deep.

And the Stukas
and medium bombers

proved devastatingly effective.

The Poles were sliced apart,

pinned into pockets
which yielded

vast numbers of prisoners.

Legend has it that
some Polish cavalry units

gallantly tried to attack
the Panzers.

But it was futile.

They were just brushed aside.

By September the 8th,
the inner pincers had met up.

German troops were advancing
on the outskirts of Warsaw.

On September the 17th,
the outer pincers

met at Brest-Litovsk.

On the same day, Soviet forces

crossed the eastern
Polish frontier

as part of the agreement reached

between Hitler and Stalin
in the n*zi-Soviet pact.

The Polish army
was now in full retreat,

its government fleeing abroad.

Warsaw, however, fought on.

Its defenders rejected
a German offer to surrender,

so the full fury of the German
w*r machine was turned on it.

Watching it all
was Adolf Hitler,

who had followed closed
behind his conquering army.

On September the 27th,
Warsaw surrendered.

The next day
the victors carved Poland up

according to
the n*zi-Soviet pact.

The Soviet Union annexed

slightly over half the country
to the east.

Germany took the rest.

Both regimes began rounding up

anyone who might present
a danger in the future.

Many were m*rder*d.

And for the first time,
the Germans revealed

how they would behave
against those peoples

in eastern Europe
whom they considered inferior.

They sent in the Einsatzgruppen,

special SS squads,
to round up Jews.

Most were forced into ghettos
in the major cities

where they would be
starved to death.

Others were ex*cuted
on the spot.

This was not, however,
the end of the Polish army.

More than 50,000 troops escaped

and eventually reached France.

There, a provisional
government had been formed

by General Wladyslaw Sikorski.

The Poles would fight on bravely
from abroad.

In Britain, the air raid sirens

had sounded within minutes

of Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain's announcement

that hostilities had begun.

In fact, despite
their politician's guarantees

of Polish sovereignty,
Britain and France

had done very little
to help Poland.

As Hitler had gambled,
they had no idea what to do

once they had
actually declared w*r.

Both countries had
begun mobilization.

Air raid precautions
were speeded up.

Anti-aircraft g*ns were
placed in major cities.

Shelters were erected.

Soon, children were
being evacuated.

Everyone had to carry gas masks,

and a blackout was introduced.

The British army began to deploy

its 100,000 strong Expeditionary
Force to northern France.

French troops
did advance a little way

inside the German border.

But they refused to move

beyond the protective cover
of a*tillery range.

The initiative was still firmly
in Hitler's hands.

And he at least knew precisely
what he was going to do next.

The Blitzkrieg against Poland

had been a stunning success
for Adolf Hitler.

He had subdued an entire country
in less than four weeks,

and he was hungry for more.

So he ordered his generals
to plan to attack

the British and French
in November 1939,

less than two months
after the fall of Poland.

His general staff was appalled.

The bulk of the German army
was still out east

and had to be moved west.

And there had been
some serious losses

in the Polish campaign.

Lessons had to be learned.

Polish anti-tank g*ns had
destroyed a division's worth

of the lightly armoured Panzers.

A quarter of the aircraft used
had been lost.

The Panzers were
too light and unreliable.

And they had frequently outrun

both their supply columns,
and the marching infantry.

Reluctantly,
after furious arguments,

Hitler agreed to wait
until the following spring.

Meanwhile, his enemies
were also learning lessons.

Britain had thought that bombers

would be a key weapon
in the coming conflict.

But when on September the 4th
Britain's Royal Air Force

made a daylight raid
on German shipping,

seven of the 30 bombers
were shot down.

It soon became clear that this
wasn't a one-off misfortune.

In some raids, over half
the aircraft were lost.

British bombers
just weren't up to the job.

So the RAF switched
to night raids.

And they decided to drop
not bombs,

but leaflets, so as not
to provoke retaliation.

So with the Blitzkrieg stalled
and the air w*r quiet,

the focus now went to the one
remaining arena, the sea.

Germany's Navy
was still in the middle

of an ambitious building program

that wasn't due to finish
until 1948.

The commander of its submarine
arm, Admiral Karl Doenitz,

planned to cut Britain's supply
routes across the Atlantic.

For this, he wanted 300
ocean-going submarines.

But he had just 38.

Nevertheless, Doenitz ensured
that all available U-boats

were at sea
on September the 3rd,

the first day of
the w*r against Britain.

That evening, believing it
to be an armed merchant cruiser,

U-30 sank the liner Athenia
without any warning.


including 26 American citizens.

The Royal Navy dwarfed
its German counterpart.

It had 12 battleships.

Germany had none.

It had five aircraft carriers.

Germany, again, had none.

So after the Athenia,
Britain declared

a total blockade
of German ports.

But for all its size,
the Royal Navy

had too few escort vessels.

Many merchant ships
had to sail alone.

And by the end of 1939,
more than 100 had been sunk.

It quickly became apparent
that the British

had woefully underestimated
the submarine threat.

On September the 17th,

U-29 sank the British
aircraft carrier Courageous.

On October the 14th,

the battleship
Royal Oak was sunk

when U-47 slipped
through the defences

of the British main fleet base
at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys.

Meanwhile, Germany's
small service fleet

had also been unleashed
against the sea lanes.

In the North Sea,
the battle cruisers

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau,

intercepted a convoy
on November the 22nd.

They sank its escort, the armed
merchant cruiser Rawalpindi.

But it was the pocket
battleship Graf Spee

which caused
the greatest problems.

Designed specifically
for commerce raiding,

its 11-inch g*ns could
overwhelm any ship

fast enough to overtake it.

And it had the speed
to escape from any battleship.

The Graf Spee had
slipped away from Germany

before hostilities began.

Soon, it was cutting loose

in the South Atlantic
and Indian Oceans.

Finally, three British cruisers,

Exeter, Ajax and Achilles,

intercepted it off
the River Plate

on the east coast
of South America.

The British ships damaged
the pocket battleship so badly

that it had to take refuge
in the neutral

Uruguayan port of Montevideo.

The Germans were then
fooled into thinking

that a more powerful
British force had arrived.

When the Graf Spee
was commanded to leave port,

the captain scuttled her,
rather than risk annihilation.

Back home, the Royal Navy crews
were feted as heroes.

But this was just about
the only obvious success

enjoyed by the British
or French armed forces

during the winter of 1939,

though the British did
enjoy one secret victory

in the technological w*r,
which was to prove vital.

As soon as the w*r began,
Britain began to lose

large numbers of ships
to German mines.

What was so mysterious,
was that the ships

didn't seem to have
actually struck them.

The mines had simply exploded
as the ships passed nearby.

Then, on the night of
November the 22nd, 1939,

a German plane
was spotted dropping a mine

at low tide in
the Thames Estuary.

Disarmed and rescued
from the mud,

the mine was found to be set off

by the magnetic signature
of a ship passing close by.

The solution was to reduce
the ship's magnetic signature

by hanging a copper cable
around the hull

and then passing
an electric current through it,

a process called degaussing.

Once degaussing
was applied to all ships,

the danger from the magnetic
mine was massively reduced.

But otherwise, as 1940 began,
the w*r was quiet.

The two sides did little
during the winter,

except to patrol, train,
and try to keep warm,

for it was
a particularly cold one.

An American journalist
called it the phony w*r.

For the Germans,
it was the Sitzkrieg.

In the spring,
the British Expeditionary Force

took up its position
towards the left of the front

on the Belgian border.

But it was dwarfed
by its French ally.

France had some 100 divisions

along the Belgian
and German frontiers

or in reserve nearby.

This imbalance meant that
the British Commander Lord Gort

had to go along with the ideas

of the French General
Maurice Gammelin.

And these
were entirely defensive.

French hopes were pinned on

the massive ramparts
of the Maginot line,

a series of
fortifications that ran

from Switzerland to Belgium
along the French-German border.

The Marginot line was considered
to be completely impassable

and would ensure that
French territory remained safe.

But otherwise,
the allies had no idea

of how actually
to defeat Germany.

Instead, they brought
up their forces

and prepared for
a repeat of World w*r I.

They would blockade Germany
to sap its strength,

and they would dig in,

ready to grind down the as*ault
which they knew must come.

None of their commanders
seemed to consider

that the Germans might have
totally different ideas

or that the next moves
might come

in a completely different arena,

Scandinavia.

On November the 30th, 1939,

a new theatre of w*r
was opened up.

The Soviet Union invaded
its tiny neighbour, Finland.

Finland had only
achieved independence

from the Russians in 1918,
and hated them.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin
was convinced

that one day the Finns
might allow the Germans in

to attack Leningrad and the
vital arctic port of Murmansk.

The red army outnumbered
its Finnish opponents

by more than 10 to one.

The invasion should
have been a walkover.

But its leadership
had been devastated

by Stalin's terrible purges.

The Finns were led by
General Gustaf Mannerheim.

He fought back using
hit-and-run tactics

amid the deep snow,
often on skis.

The Soviet troops,
confused and poorly led,

suffered massive losses.

Finland's gallant resistance

caught the imagination of
the British and French.

Soon they were planning to send
help via Norway and Sweden.

The fact that this might suck

two neutral countries
into the w*r was ignored.

But a renewed Soviet offensive
at the beginning of February

broke the Finnish
defensive line.

In early March, the Finns
had to cede territory to Stalin.

By now, Hitler, too, had become
interested in Scandinavia.

The n*zi w*r machine
relied on iron ore from Sweden.

In the winter months, the only
way it could get to Germany

was via the Norwegian port
of Narvik.

If the allies landed in Norway,

this vital supply
could be cut off.

So he ordered plans
to be prepared

for an invasion of Norway.

Denmark, which was in the way,

would also have to be seized.

The Norway theatre heated up
on February the 16th, 1940.

The British destroyer Cossack

boarded the German
supply ship Altmark

in a Norwegian fjord
to release prisoners.

Then, on April the 9th,

German troops
began landing at five ports,

Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen,

Trondheim and Narvik.

At the same time,
men of their newly formed

German parachute division

seized Stavanger
and Oslo airfields.

The Norwegian defenders
were swiftly overwhelmed,

as were the Danes.

German forces occupied
their country within 24 hours.

In Norway,
the Germans moved swiftly

to link up their beachheads
and seize all the major towns.

In the air, the Luftwaffe
had total control.

The allies now responded.

A landing force was dispatched
to recapture Narvik.

French and Norwegian forces
achieved this

on May the 28th.

But a substantial German force
was now approaching.

So six weeks later,

the allies abandoned
Norway to its fate.

Hitler had spent most of
that winter and spring

at his country retreat,

the Berghof in Southern Bavaria.

For him, the events
in Scandinavia were a sideshow.

Instead, he was preparing
for his next major Blitzkrieg

against Britain and France.

The first plan
his generals brought him

had a familiar ring to it.

The Germans would advance
into Belgium

aiming to swing down
towards Paris.

It was a repeat of
the Schlieffen Plan,

which the Germans had used
at the start of World w*r I.

The allies were expecting this.

And their main
strategic discussion

was how to prepare for it.

When the Germans attacked,
the allies planned

that their forces
west of the Marginot Line

would swing forward into Belgium

to hold them on the shorter
and more defensible line

of the Rivers Dyle and Meuse.

Then on January the 10th, 1940,

a German liaison aircraft
lost its way

and crashed in Belgium.

A copy of the German plan
was found.

This convinced the allies

that their Dyle plan
must be right,

and they deployed
their troops accordingly.

Unfortunately, the same event
made the Germans

alter their ideas entirely.

Chief planner
General Erich von Manstein

had always thought
the original plan unimaginative.

He was worried that
the German forces

would become bogged down,
as in World w*r I,

and that his country would lose
a long, drawn out w*r.

So he proposed to Hitler
that the main thrust

should be made at the point
where the Marginot Line ended

and where the allies
were most vulnerable,

as their western
armies moved forward.

Virtually all Germany's
Panzers would be gathered

opposite the Ardennes
in southeast Belgium.

The allies considered
this hilly and wooded area

almost impossible for tanks.

It was, therefore,
lightly defended.

The plan was to drive deep
behind the allied armies

which would have
advanced into Belgium.

They could then cut them off.

And all the forces
sitting in the Marginot Line

would be bypassed.

It was a high-risk strategy.

The German armour could
become stuck in the forest.

But Hitler loved it.

So the German forces
were redeployed

without the allies knowing.

The allies meanwhile prepared
for their long, defensive w*r.

In addition to the formidable
barrier of the Marginot Line,

they had a slight advantage,
both in manpower,

some 110 divisions
available against 95 German,

and in armour,

about 3,000 vehicles
against 2,700.

The French also had
the better tanks.

Their 32 ton Char B had both



Its disadvantage was
that the main g*n

was mounted in the hull and
so was difficult to aim.

The other g*n was
in a one man turret,

from which the commander
had to control the tank

as well as man the g*n.

In contrast,
the newest German design,

a 17 ton Panzer Mark IV

had a 75 millimetre g*n

in a spacious three man turret.

So its crew could work
as a team,

though only about


The other main French tanks
also had g*ns

which matched those
of their German counterparts,

but again, the French
had the one man turret.

The one area where the Germans
had a clear advantage

was in the air.

The Luftwaffe had 2,000 bombers,
the allies just 800.

The Luftwaffe had


including the ultra-modern
Messerschmitt Bf 109.

They faced just 2,500
mainly older aircraft.

The Royal Air Force
did have about 800

excellent Spitfire and
Hurricane fighters.

But it was keen to keep them
for home defence.

But the main difference
between the two armies

was in philosophy.

Everything the Germans did

was focused on
the possibilities of Blitzkrieg.

All their armour was grouped

in 10 independent
Panzer divisions.

But the French
were preparing for a repeat

of the static fighting
of World w*r I.

They saw tanks as
infantry support

and distributed them piecemeal

instead of concentrating them.

They had noticed the success
of Germany's Panzers in Poland.

So they were assembling
three armour divisions.

But by the start of hostilities,
none was fully operational.

Two totally different ways
of military thinking

were about to go head to head.

Blitzkrieg against
static warfare.

The summer of 1940 would
soon show which was correct.

On May the 10th, 1940,

Winston Churchill became
Prime Minister of Britain.

He couldn't have picked
a worse day.

That was the day
Hitler chose to launch

his Blitzkrieg against
France and Britain.

At dawn, a whole German
airborne division

parachuted into Holland
to seize bridges and airfields.

Simultaneously,
the massive Belgian fortress

of Eban Emael was assaulted.

Paratroop engineers
were dropped on top

by swooping German gliders.

They swiftly silenced its g*ns.

Meanwhile,
the Luftwaffe attacked

Dutch and Belgian air bases.

Then, the frontier barriers
were pushed aside.

And Hitler's Army Group B
under General Fedor von Bock

now drove
into Holland and Belgium.

As planned, the French
and British armies

along the Belgian border
moved forward

to their new defensive line
along the Dyle and Meuse Rivers.

But none of
the allied commanders

seemed to have noticed

that German Army Group A, which
had the bulk of the Panzers,

after brushing aside
the Belgian frontier troops

had now begun driving
through the hills and woods

of the Ardennes to their south.

Meanwhile, the Germans were
pushing rapidly through Holland.

The obsolete Dutch army
was no match

for the highly tuned
German w*r machine.

And it was under continual heavy
air attack by the Luftwaffe

which roamed
the skies unchallenged.

On May the 14th,
the Germans demanded

the surrender of
the port of Rotterdam.

A large force of bombers
took off as the Dutch hesitated.

While they were airborne,

the Dutch agreed
to surrender the city.

But apparently a recall message
never reached the bombers.

Rotterdam was devastated.

The Dutch capitulated
the next day.

Then came the hammer blow.

The thing that British
and French planners

had thought impossible
had happened.

German Panzers were through
the Ardennes

and had reached the Meuse
by the evening of May the 12th.

Among the first
to arrive at Sedan,

well north of the Marginot Line,

were the men of
the 19th Panzer Corps

commanded by General
Heinz Guderian,

fresh from
the triumphs in Poland.

Guderian now showed
how Blitzkrieg should be done.

He ignored the troops
in the Marginot Line,

and he didn't wait for
his own infantry to catch up.

He pushed straight on.

The next day, as*ault troops
crossed the River Meuse.

Engineers began building
bridges for the armour

while under heavy French fire.

On the 14th,
the Panzers began crossing.

That evening Guderian's
bridgehead was eight miles deep.

The French troops,
stuck in the Marginot Line,

were too immobile to intervene.

Allied bombers
made despairing attempts

to destroy the German bridges.

But most were shot down.

All the while German a*tillery

pounded the French defences

while the Stukas screamed in.

Just three days after the attack
had been launched,

the French defenders
around Sedan broke.

Guderian's Panzers
began racing westwards.

By nightfall they had
advanced more than 40 miles

behind the northern group
of Allied armies.

These had been holding firm
on the Dyle line.

But now the French supreme
commander, General Gamelin,

realised that they were
about to be encircled.

He ordered them to fall back.

This sudden decision to withdraw

bewildered the allied troops

who had no idea what was
going on behind them.

As they fell back, they were
hindered by a growing flood

of refugees clogging the roads.

That day, the French Prime
Minister Paul Reynaud

phoned Churchill.

He said, "We are beaten.

We have lost the battle."

But for all the brilliance
of the Blitzkrieg,

the Germans were vulnerable.

As the Panzers raced westwards,

they created
an ever longer corridor

just a few miles wide.

The allies realised that this
was open to counterattack.

The bulk of the German army
was still

totally dependent on horsepower

or its own feet for transport.

So the gap between
the rampaging Panzers

and the follow-up infantry
grew with every hour.

On May the 17th,
Colonel Charles de Gaulle,

commander of one of the newly
formed French armour divisions,

made the first of two attempts

to cut through
the German line near Crecy.

But the cumbersome
French command system

meant that units were sent
into battle piecemeal,

not in a coordinated thrust.

The Germans had
little difficulty

warding off both attacks,

inflicting heavy casualties.

It seemed that nothing
could now stop Guderian.

He plunged on further
and further into France.

By the 19th, his lead units
were past Peronne.

On the 20th, in
an extraordinary 56 mile dash,

Amiens had been taken
by lunchtime.

Abbeville, just 14 miles
from the English channel,

was seized by 9 that evening.

And at midnight, a battalion
of the 2nd Panzer division

reached the coast of Noyelles.

The Germans had split
the allied front in two.

Everything now depended
on whether they could defend

this long, thin corridor,

or whether the allies could
successfully counterattack.

So now the British got ready
to break the German lines.

On May the 21st,
two armoured battalions

prepared to launch
an attack south of Arras.

The British tanks
were even more unsuited

to fast-moving armoured warfare
than the French.

Their most effective machine,
the Matilda II,

had been designed
for infantry support.

Though well armoured,
it was slow and undergunned.

The Germans had little trouble
in repulsing the attack.

But it did have an effect.

By now, the German high command

were becoming worried

by their extended
lines of communication.

So, for the time being,

driving south into the rest
of France was put on hold

until the infantry
had caught up.

The priority was to turn north

and eliminate
the British Expeditionary Force

and the French First Army
fighting beside it.

On May the 22nd,
Guderian and the Panzers

began their attack
to destroy the allied armies.

These were now pulling back
to the ports

of Boulogne,
Calais, and Dunkirk,

but they were trapped.

On May the 23rd,
General Alan Brooke,

commander British II Corps,
wrote,

"Nothing but a miracle can save

the British
Expeditionary Force."

Two days later, the Germans
seized Boulogne.

It was beginning to look as if

even a miracle
would be too late.

May the 25th, 1940.

the situation of
the British Expeditionary Force

and the French First Army
was desperate.

The port of Boulogne
had been overrun.

German troops had
isolated Calais.

The British were being forced
back to the port of Dunkirk.

Lord Gort,
the British commander,

advised his government
that the only hope

of saving even
a fraction of his troops

was to organise
an evacuation by sea.

But as the dive bombers
screamed down

and the Panzers were poised
for the final as*ault,

evacuation seemed
a forlorn hope.

The British anticipated
that Dunkirk

would be overrun within a day.

But unknown to the British,

Hitler and
the German high command

had made a decision
which was to save them

from total annihilation.

The Germans were only too aware

that their Panzer crews
were exhausted

and their machines
needed urgent repairs.

Those attacks by De Gaulle and
the British may have failed,

but they had shown very clearly

how vulnerable the German
lines of communication were.

This was the great weakness
of Blitzkrieg.

So the high command
made a fateful decision.

It decided to stop
the Panzers' advance

to save them
from further damage,

and wait for the
infantry to come up.

Only then
would the allied pocket

around Dunkirk be eliminated.

So the Blitzkrieg was halted,
and the Panzers lay idle.

They would
not advance for two days,

just enough to buy
the British in particular

a little time to prepare.

As the tanks waited, the only
major action was in Calais.

There, the British
and French garrison

refused to surrender.

Instead, they had to be
overrun in three days

of bloody hand to hand fighting.

When the Panzers
got going again two days later

on May the 26th,
the weather had changed.

The Germans became bogged down
in the heavy rain,

again giving the allies
more time.

So it was that at 7:57 p.m.
on May the 26th,

Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsey,
Flag Officer commanding Dover,

received a signal
that he was to put

Operation Dynamo into action.

Operation Dynamo
was a plan to withdraw

the British Expeditionary Force
by sea.

He had prepared it more
in hope than in expectation

that it could ever be used.

The following day
a makeshift fleet

of destroyers, tugs,
and passenger ferries

crossed the English Channel.

But by the end of the day,

less than 8,000 of
the over 300,000 troops

of Dunkirk had been rescued.

The port was under
such heavy air attack

that it could not be used.

And the ships could not get in
close enough to the beaches.

So Ramsay now sent out a call
for any boats of shallow draft

that were over 30 feet long.

Hundreds of cabin cruisers,
fishing boats,

and barges were gathered
from harbours

all over southern England
and sent across the channel.

Often crewed by
their civilian owners,

the little ships worked
on the beaches of Dunkirk

ferrying troops out
to the larger boats

waiting to take them to safety.

All the time they were
under constant air attack.

The British Air Force
threw every fighter it possessed

into the battle
to drive the Luftwaffe off.

Even so, seven French and
six British destroyers were sunk

together with


A quarter of the 665 small boats
never got home.

But when the evacuation
was halted on June the 4th,

over 300,000 men,


had been rescued.

None of this would
have been possible

without the heroism
of the French army.

It played a vital role in
slowing down the German advance.

The French rear guard
didn't leave

its positions around Dunkirk

until the last boats had
pulled away from the beaches.

One British officer
compared them

to the last stand of
the Spartans at Thermopylae.

Even so,
the British army had lost

most of its heavy weapons.

It wouldn't be fit to fight

the Germans again
for a long time.

France still had to fight on,

but it had lost more
than half its army.

Against them,
the Germans had 92 divisions,

including masses of armour.

At 4 in the morning
of June the 5th,

a short bombardment began
the final destruction of France.

as*ault troops crossed
the Somme and the Aisne.

At first, the French resistance
was fierce.

And the Germans struggled to
break out of their bridgeheads.

But once again, the Luftwaffe
helped crush the defences.

Soon, the Panzers
were pushing south.

And the trickle of
surrendering French troops

turned into a flood.

By the 9th, the Panzers
had reached the River Seine.

And the infantry were
only a few hours behind.

Once across the river,
the Germans fanned out

into the interior
of the country.

On the 14th, the German army
marched into Paris.

The swastika was raised
on the Eiffel Tower.

Hitler had secured the prize

which had eluded
the Kaiser in 1914.

The Parisians could only watch
in stunned horror.

Throughout the period
of the French collapse,

Winston Churchill
paid five visits to France

trying to bolster
French resistance.

On June the 16th,
he even offered Paul Reynaud

a union with Britain
if France stayed in the fight.

But it was too late.

Raynaud's cabinet
rejected the proposal,

and the Prime Minister
resigned that evening.

He was succeeded by
Marshal Philippe Petain

who immediately asked
the Germans for an armistice.

It was only now that the Germans

finally began to attack
the Marginot Line,

which had been left isolated.

After a heavy
a*tillery bombardment,

the French defenders offered
only token resistance

before the German troops
occupied the forts.

On June the 21st,
Hitler went to Compiegne,

where the railway carriage
in which the Germans

had signed the armistice in 1918
was kept.

As the French delegation
entered the carriage,

he handed them
his terms and then left.

The French insisted
on consulting their government.

But the next day,
they were told that

if they didn't sign immediately,

the Panzers would roll again.

They signed.

And the humiliation of France
was complete.

For Hitler, his control of
western Europe seemed absolute.

He felt sure that Britain
must now seek peace

and that soon,
he could turn

to the next stage
of his master plan.

But even though the Blitzkrieg
had achieved so much so fast,

it hadn't won him the w*r.

The British,
battered and wounded,

had escaped
to fight another day.