Dunkirk 1940: 'Whereabouts Unknown'

They called it ‘the slaughter of the innocents’. The barely trained and poorly equipped men of the Labour Divisions were never meant to fight, but when the German blitzkreig sliced through the Allied armies in 1940, they were all that stood in the way of the annihilation of the British Expeditionary Force. While the Allied generals bickered amongst themselves, all command and control lost, their men died to buy precious time as the main army fell back towards Dunkirk. Long after the last of the rescue ships reached home, the men of the Labour Divisions fought on. That summer saw a thousand small acts of heroism, from the officer with multiple wounds who refused to leave his command, to the lone infantryman who held off a German panzer with a single anti-tank gun; refusing to surrender, he died at his post, alone. Based on original research, official reports, diaries and personal accounts, Dunkirk 1940 reveals the crucial and largely forgotten heroism of the amateur soldiers, in particular those of 137th Infantry Brigade, during the chaos and terror of the fall of France.