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That's the Explorers Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War,

Episode 196, The Fall of France, the Myths of Dunkirk.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Pierce for the donation

and to Misal, Scott, Kyle, Tyler, and S.M. Callie for choosing to become members. You can find out

more about becoming a member over at History of the Second World War.com slash members. The Dunkirk

evacuations hold a special place in the history of the Second World War,

particularly in Britain. The 330,000 British and French soldiers that were brought off the beaches

and piers of Dunkirk far exceeded even the wildest hopes of the British leaders that ordered

the evacuation to begin on May 26, 1940. Over the following 10 days, through the tremendous efforts of many

groups of sailors, soldiers, and pilots, those evacuees were removed from their place in front

of the German onslaught and taken back to either the United Kingdom or the French ports that

were still outside of German control. In a war full of myths, Dunkirk is the epicenter of an entire genre of myths,

which would begin to form almost immediately after the soldiers returned to the home islands.

There would be multiple accounts of the battle published during the war years,

often in a memoir style, and they were almost always pretty unreliable when it came to details,

but were often pretty good at telling a good story.

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