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

Episode 197, the fall of France, Operation Dynamo.

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

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

After the first three days of Operation Dynamo, which was the code name for the operation to evacuate

British and French troops from Dunkirk, around 58,000 men had been evacuated.

This was already an impressive number after three days, but there would be five more days

evacuation to follow. Over those five days, there would be three critically important tasks that had to be performed

if the maximum number of soldiers were to be brought out of harm's way.

The first and obvious of these tasks is that the sailors and those ashore

had to coordinate their efforts as best as they possibly could. And to this end, Captain

William Tennant came ashore on the second day of Operation Dynamo to coordinate the

shoreside efforts of the Royal Navy to get men into boats. The second task was to keep the

Luftwaffe away from the evacuation, a task to be performed by the Royal Air Force.

The third task, and by far the most dangerous, was to keep the German ground forces away

...