Five Days In May: A Glimmer Of Hope

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In these dark days, the Prime Minister would be grateful if all his colleagues in the government, as well as important officials, would maintain a high morale in their circles, not minimising the gravity of events, but showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his domination.

No tolerance should be given to the idea that France will make a separate peace.

But whatever may happen on the continent, we cannot doubt our duty.

And we shall certainly use all our power to defend the island, the Empire, and our cause.

That was, of course, a strictly confidential memo written by Winston Churchill on the morning of Tuesday, the 28th of May, because we've put Black Monday behind us, haven't we, Jim?

Well, not entirely.

Because there's a further war cabinet meeting on Monday, the 27th of May at 10 p.m.

Yeah.

But it's called to discuss yet another crisis.

And this, of course, is the Belgians surrendering.

Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, where the Belgians have just surrendered.

It's episode four of our five days in May, trying to zoom in as close as we can get to the decisions being made at this absolutely titanic five days working week in British history.

A world history.

And as we said in the last episode, the fate of the free world depends on this, but also the unfree world.

What would happen to the Soviet Union if Britain is out of the war?

You know, because that's next.

Then, in fact, pretty soon the Germans will be drawing up plans for heading east, actually, regardless of the outcome with Britain.

So, the fate of the entire planet, make no mistake, hangs on what's been going on.

And

I don't think that's hyperbole.

That's not us trying to sell in a podcast here or sell in the story.

I actually think that is the case.

And unfortunately, for a lot of people who don't like him, Winston Church is right at the center of those events.

Yep.

And whether Churchill can win over Halifax and the rest of the war coming up, you know, that's going to have to wait another day.

But the stakes literally could not have been higher so that's where we're at on the 27th of may dadie penna who's now ensconced down in cornwall um we mentioned before civilian with her kids she's going you know we're now receiving very little news which may be a good thing she also wonders with it has to be said a certain amount of perceptiveness why the germans appeared not to have made good use of their gap I should have thought they would have rushed troops through it, she added, as fast as they could get them there.

Quite.

That's interesting, isn't it?

If it's obvious to Dadi Panner, but it's not obvious to Hitler.

Oh, it's amazing.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

The thing is, is though, not everyone really knows the true extent of the disaster.

So intuition is what it is, right?

Harold Nicholson, who's at the Ministry of Information, he's at the Ministry of Information saying we're a bit short on news.

They have a meeting later on that day where he hears about the situation in France for General Mason MacFarlane, who's just back from BFHQ, having commanded MAC force.

Macfarlane tells us in blunt language that the BEF are now surrounded, notes Nicholson, and that a disaster is bound to take place.

You can see why Churchill drafted that memo, can't you?

Macfarlane's been sent to let people know what's going on, basically, hasn't he?

Back in London.

He wants the

Minister of Information to know that the Belgians deserted them, which is deeply unfair.

And the lack of French fight is what's caused all their problems.

And that they urged that the most important thing is to save the reputation of the British Army by putting the blame on their allies instead.

I've got a lot of time for this guy.

I think General Macy McFarlane is a splendid fellow, isn't he, Jim?

Well, he ends up being the top military diplomat in Italy, 1944.

Wonderful.

Fantastic fellow.

Yes, it's obviously the fault of the French and the Belgians, old boy.

They've been absolutely ghastly, totally useless.

And the idea is to...

The big problem, obviously, if you're the Minister of Information, you've got to inform the public, but you've also got to can't tell the Germans too much, can you?

No.

No, absolutely not.

So, you know, it's a bit of a nightmare, really.

Yeah, yeah.

To put it mildly.

And the other problem is that, you know, they're trying to muster everyone around Dunkirk and trying to deal with their French allies, but they can't get hold of them.

Gort and Pownall never seem to be able to get a hold of Blanchard, which is a source of enormous frustration.

Yeah.

Every time they think they found him, he's gone.

He hasn't moved on.

He hasn't told Gort what's going on.

The French comms generally, the Battle for France, are bad, aren't they?

They're relying on dispatch riders and stuff.

They won't use the phone.

They're very much stuck, aren't they?

In an even older way of doing things than the BF, perhaps.

Yes, there's a reason why I can never get hold of Blanchard is because the phone lines are down.

and as you say, they're using dispatch riders, which is just hopeless in this situation where roads are clogged with troops and refugees and, you know, repeatedly under aerial attack.

You just can't do anything.

Gort's staff moves to the Dunkirk area.

And Henry Pownor, who keeps a very good diary during this time, he later ends up in Southeast Asia.

Do you remember him?

He's chief of staff to Mount Martin.

But he's chief of staff to Pownall at this point.

And he notes in his diary much of the town was in flames and falling houses blocked the roads.

Bodies of civilians were lying in the streets.

I mean, it's apocalyptic stuff, isn't it?

They learn when they get there that the port is unusable.

And without ever managing to catch up with Blanchard, they get to their new headquarters at Khutkirke at 3am on the 28th.

But plenty of troops are already on the move that night.

Some heading back to Dunkirk and others filling the gap left by the retreating Belgiums.

And this has been one of the big dilemmas.

is that on the top of the lozenge there's this stretch from the belgian coastline in you know 15 20 miles where the belgians are holding it and suddenly with their surrender that gap has got to be plugged.

And General Brooke, who at this point is not the chief of the Imperial General Staff, but is commander of two corps, which is holding this

northern part of the Lozenge, holds a conference with his commanders.

And his three divisions are spread out west from Menin, as in Menning Gate, to the east of Lille.

But clearly now some pretty complicated movements are going to be needed because in the middle you've got 4th Division, which is to move back a short distance behind the River Lise

around the village of Warneton.

And the rain helps keep the enemy at bay, which is fortunate although obviously it's completely miserable for the men but Major General Bernard Montgomery's third division who he Jim never heard of him never heard of him he's at the bottom of two corps line and he is going to swing behind fourth and fifth divisions and fill the hole on fifth division's left flank so it goes belgians fifth division fourth division third division and now third division is going to swing in swing right overnight behind fourth and fifth division and and fill that gap and this is moving the entire division 50 miles.

At night.

This is the thing he's practiced.

It's the interesting thing, is that it's one of the things that Monty's had 3rd Division try before.

And the division handles incredibly well and so on.

And even in this chaos, there are people who have a good Dunkirk, don't they?

Who then end up absolutely central to the way the Allies then go on to win the war is the truth.

So Gort finally catches up with Blanchard at 11 a.m.

on the 28th.

It's quite funny.

They've been trying to find him.

And he walks into Gort's command post.

Hello, you'll be looking for me, I hear.

At around 11 o'clock, around the same time that the Belgians are surrendering.

BCIM!

And he's horrified to learn that the BEF are now evacuating.

No one has told him in French high command.

Guess Cassie.

Well, they might have done it.

It's just the message hasn't reached him.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, there's some lad on a motorbike in a ditch somewhere.

There's no other conclusion that could really have been drawn at this point.

Gorton Pownall now urge him to order the French First Army, who are at the bottom of the corridor, to join the BEF in 40.

So they're at the eastern end of of this lozenge.

You really need to join in with this.

Help us collapse the bag, as it were, because Gort's going to retreat to the line Ypres Poperange Cassel, which is behind the River Isa, some 25 miles from the coast.

I mean, these are all First World War names, aren't they?

I know, I know, it is something, isn't it?

And a lot of the senior officers must have been thinking, oh, goodness, and what do we do now?

Beat the buggers here last time, but they seem to have got the best of this this time.

A lot of them must have been thinking that.

And you've got these amazing stands at places like Hazerbrook, Cassel, Wormhoot, old county regiments, Gloucesters and your Worcestershire,

Ox and Bucks, and all these people.

This is your grandfather, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly.

Territorial Battalion, you know, 2nd Bucks Battalion, Territorial Battalion, a handful of professional soldiers.

Everyone's a civilian, pretty much.

They've been up to the deal line.

This is the other thing to remember with the BEF.

It isn't just that they're caught in their existing positions by the Germans and overwhelmed.

They have gone up to the deal line in Belgium.

They've marched into Belgium in order to meet the feint through the Low Countries.

And now they've had to scurry back.

Everyone's knackered.

Everyone's footsore from that alone.

And then they put in these extraordinary stands.

And you've got artillery firing 18 pounders over open sites and stuff against panzers.

You've got blokes at crossroads with boys' anti-tank rifles.

You've got sappers ditching their shovels and getting stuck in.

It's an extraordinary action there, really.

And critical to the business of just absorbing the German blow.

And I think in the last episode, you pointed out how with sluice gates open, with the area wide open and flooded and flat with no distinguishing features, you can defend here.

The Germans also are at the end of their rope too, so their men are tired, their kits wearing out, and all this sort of thing.

And it's a fairer fight at this point, isn't it?

I think it's fair to say.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the Germans have a rough time of it too, at this point, which is what it's all about.

Because time is of the essence.

It absolutely is.

Anyway, Blanchard's having none of it

is the truth of it.

Love it.

He went completely off the deep end.

You know, such a withdrawal was impossible, Couldn't do it.

You know, had to stay where they were, all the rest of it.

So Gorton Panel go, okay, fine.

You're on your own then.

Great.

Suit yourself, mate.

Yeah.

Suit yourself, mate.

Yeah.

So ended the meeting, notes panel, except for one or two excited moments.

There was no unfriendliness, and we said goodbye quite cordially.

But Blanchard was a professor, no general, and the situation was much too big for him to compete with.

Fair enough.

Very polite.

Yeah, he is, to be honest.

Blanchard does not have a good campaign.

No.

You know, he's an Army Group commander.

He's Army Group North, and he's just rabbit in headlights.

Is the truth of it?

Yes, but he's a professor, no general, Jim.

He's a professor, oh boy.

He's no general.

Yeah, I mean, might as well have been Monty saying that, mightn't it?

Yeah, I know.

Yes, there's very much a tone here.

Sort of withering dismissiveness.

Yeah.

In the south, however, Gudarian's panzers, now that they've been unhalted, it's interesting they're taking a back seat, aren't they?

Yeah.

Well, it's nothing they can do because it's all waterlogged.

Yeah.

It's now, you know, the moment's passed.

The opportunity for the panzers to strike was, you know, on the 24th of May when they were halted.

It's not now.

It's a different scenario.

So 1st and 2nd Panzer pressing on towards Dunkirk and the 20th Motorized Division with the SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler and the Gross Deutschland Regiment subordinated to it.

And they're pushing hard against the British line.

So Guder is still hoping to reach Dunkirk, but his part in this incredible victory is, it has to be said, almost done.

You know, so his panzers are playing a sort of supporting role, but it's infiltration by infantry that's going to clear the defence around that's growing around Dunkirk.

And some ugly scenes at this time as well.

So on the 28th, 80 POWs of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment are executed by the Waffen-SS troops of the SS Liebstandalte.

And also the near Merville SS Totenkopf troops also massacre 97 men of the 2nd Royal Norfolk's.

You know, so it's pretty bad business.

And actually, I went to

the Wormoot place

where the Royal Warwicks were last year.

It was amazing.

Yeah, when you did your walk, didn't you?

You went by there, didn't you?

Anyway, and the North Army Group B is still pressing forward, but with the sudden collapse of the Belgians, the German 18th Army has to sort of clear away half a million prisoners and then move forward again.

And actually, their advance is dramatically slowing at this point.

You know, hordes of Belgian companies surrendering, wandering towards German lines and loose groups of the hands and yeah.

And, you know, they've all got to be cleared and sorted and corralled.

And, you know, so actually, on the 28th, the fighting is comparatively light in the big scheme of things.

And so the earlier fears that Dunkirk is going to be overwhelmed in 24 to 36 hours, it now seems that they've got a little bit more time.

So that's a minor glimmer of hope.

Particularly, time also allows them the opportunity to set up defensive positions better, you know, dig in and all the rest of it.

So it's clear that Dunkirk is not going to be overrun immediately.

And time allows them to get more men off, even if it's still not very many.

But what do the public know back in Britain?

Well, they don't know there's an evacuation coming.

Although the newspapers, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because there's this really interesting balance that has to be struck.

Even when things are going very badly, the British newspapers know they can't essentially lie to people.

So they say, BEF fight heroic battle for the coast in the Daily Express.

300 men with rifles hold off 100 Nazi armoured units.

Fate of Calais Uncertain.

I mean, they're directing people's attention to the fact that the BEF is now on the coast and surrounded and are holding off the enemy.

Fate of Calais Uncertain, of course, is, however, nonsense because Calais fell two days previously.

I just think it's really interesting that that isn't a newspaper saying everything's going, everything's tickety-boo, is it?

That's leading the public towards a disaster, right?

You'd have thought so, yeah.

You imagine the conversations between Ministry of Information and the editor of the Daily Express, which is Beaverbrook, after all.

Yes, exactly.

He's now Minister of Aircraft Production.

Yeah.

I mean, that's all quite difficult, isn't it?

The critical thing, though, is the split between Churchill and Halifax still has to be resolved, doesn't it?

We've had the Rose Garden chat, but cabinet has to resume.

You've got Belgium capitulating.

King Leopold surrender.

What does that all mean?

So, how does Churchill handle it, Jim?

Well, magnanimity once again comes to the fore.

You know, in France, a finger of blame is being pointed squarely at King Leopold for deserting his allies, but British Prime Minister refuses to pass any judgment on the Belgian monarch at all.

After the first cabinet, Churchill asked Chamberlain for a private talk.

This is just brilliant.

So, an opportunity has arisen for Churchill to show his loyalty to Chamberlain just at the right moment.

So, Lloyd George, former Prime Minister and the longest-serving MP in the House of Commons, has written to Churchill asking to be part of the government.

And Churchill now asks Chamberlain what he thinks of this idea.

And both men know that Lloyd George is defeatist, admires Hitler and hates Chamberlain.

I replied that it was best to be frank, Chamberlain writes in a letter to his sister later.

If he thought that Lloyd George would be more useful to him than I, he had only to say so and I would gladly retire.

But I would not work with him.

And Churchill knows this is what he's going to say.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Churchill immediately replies that Chamberlain was of far more help to him than Noy George ever could be.

There was no comparison.

Winston and I were serving together, added Chamberlain, and we would go down together.

I mean, so simple.

I mean, you know, he's just, he's just reeled him in, hasn't he?

He's just playing him.

Well, yeah.

I mean, again, it just shows one of those things that personality, what people make of each other, whether they can work together or not.

These are actually the things of history, as much as sort of tectonic plates of economic fatalism or whatever.

There is the simple fact.

These guys detest one another.

Chamberlain absolutely cannot and will not have anything to do with Lloyd George.

And that seals Churchill's political fate in a way, doesn't it?

Yes, but what does Chamberlain say to Churchill?

He says, we will go down together.

Exactly.

Fight it out or go down together.

In other words, I'm with you.

Yeah.

It's incredible, isn't it?

That's the point.

Churchill's got him.

He knows that Chamberlain is not going to side with Halifax now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's what he knows.

So that then emboldens Churchill for his next move.

So So the next move

when it comes to the next war cabinet.

But first of all, Churchill wants to make a brief statement to the House about the fall of Belgium.

So they all go into the House of Commons.

There's no mention of the evacuation at all.

Not one at all.

You know, he thinks he'll do that a little bit later.

So he says, I have only one thing to add, that nothing which may happen in this battle can in any way relieve us of our duty to defend the world cause to which we have avowed ourselves, nor should it destroy our confidence in in our power to make our way, as on former occasions in our history, through disaster and through grief, to the ultimate defeat of our enemies.

And who's the one man not there to witness that?

Well, it's going to be Lord Halifax.

Because he's a lord.

Because he's a lord.

He's not part of the

house of commons.

He's not part of the commons struggle.

It's fascinating, isn't it?

You know, and this is the kind of rhetoric that Halifax doesn't like, you know, that speaks of Britain still having a moral duty to the world when logic suggests clearly that an opportunity to get out of their current dire fix should be grabbed with both hands.

Yeah.

But when a liberal member suggests that the MP's words reflect the feelings of the whole house, no one demurs.

So they might privately be thinking something different, but openly they're not.

So the next war cabinet meets soon after in a room at the Commons, so not at number 10.

And it's then that the argument between Halifax and Churchill is reopened.

Chamberlain says that he feels it's a rather steamy discussion.

Certainly Halifax and Churchill repeated their same argument for and against mediation.

So Churchill says, The French are trying to get us on the slippery slope.

Our position will be entirely different when Germany has made an unsuccessful attempt to invade this country.

Halifax sighs, rubs his forehead, and then says, we must not ignore the fact that we might get better terms before France went out of the war and our aircraft factories were bombed than we might get in three months' time.

And so it goes on, back and forth, neither giving ground until 5 p.m.

Churchill then asks for an adjournment and to meet back again at 7 o'clock that night.

And this is because he's already arranged to now address the entire cabinet, not just those in the war cabinet, in his rooms at the Common.

And this is a crucial moment that has now arrived.

For during this address to senior ministers, and there's over 25 or something ministers in the wider cabinet, Churchill plans to kill Halifax's proposals once and for all.

And we'll be back after the break to tell you how he does that.

But we will also, before we get to that, we'll update you on what's going on in Dunkirk itself.

We'll be back in a second.

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Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk.

Well, we left you with Winston Churchill.

He's adjourned the war cabinet.

He's going to address the entire cabinet and he's got something up his sleeve to finally shut Halifax down.

But meanwhile, because after all, this is like the most

lasagna of meanwhile.

What you've got now is Captain Tennant.

Captain Tennant, who's the SNO, the senior naval officer

in Dunkirk.

He's now got a tin hat, his tin hat on with the letters SNO cut out from the tin foil of a cigarette packet and stuck on with sardine oil.

Who says the British Carlos?

It was one of the things that most annoyed me about Dunkirk was seeing Kenneth Rannag running around in a soft cap and not a tin helmet.

It's the spit

that's that was your main sticking point or the Spitfire with 25 minutes of of ammunition?

That was one of them.

Yeah, no, that was pretty high on the list as well.

I would say that was sticking point number seven.

Yes, a tremendous glider, that Spitfire, as well.

Well, as I would know.

Yes, of course, Jim.

As our producer JR chipping in there, I mean, maybe we do an episode about the movie and people could just send in their gripes and we'll just read them out.

Actually, that's not a bad idea, is it?

You don't need to.

I can do it all.

No, no, no.

I want the wisdom of crowds on all of the problems with that.

All right.

Let's get him in.

But I think one of the interesting things about Dunkirk is it's often said of the British that they're bad of improvising during the Second World War, that we don't, that the British are incapable of improvisation.

Well, explain to me Dunkirk then.

That's the most amazing bit of improvisation.

I mean, are you kidding?

From top to bottom, from the letters cut out of a cigarette packet and stuck on with sardine oil to the entire damn thing.

That's all improvisation.

What is?

Anyway, let's quickly recap what Bill Tennant's been up to since arriving in Dunkirk late the previous afternoon around 5 30 p.m.

so he signals back to Dover asking for every available craft to head to the beaches east of the port but obviously taking men in rowing boats and other small craft is an extremely slow and laborious process

so then at around 10 p.m.

the previous evening Monday the 27th of May Tennant notices something significant.

He notices that the Luftwaffe had pounded the harbour and the port facilities relentlessly, but not the two long moles that extend some 1600 yards out to sea.

So the moles are these are kind of like a breakwater.

They're a kind of narrow wall.

And in this case, they are lattice.

They're lattice concrete piles and topped with a narrow wooden walkway.

So the breakwater bit of it is kind of sort of under the surface where they're kind of embedded, really.

And anyway, the western mole, you know, obviously they can't get there because they wouldn't be able to then get across to the other side, which is where they need to be.

But the eastern mole running out from the sea wall that links the harbour entrance to Marlowe Le Bin is easily accessible.

So, what you can do is you can walk from the beaches at Marlowe Le Bas, which is immediate beach immediately to the east of Dunkirk Port, clamber onto a concrete sea wall, and from there walk straight out onto this mole, the east mole.

And it's still there.

It's been rebuilt, but it is still there in exactly the same position.

And it's a mile long, isn't it?

It's extraordinary.

Nearly a mile long.

What's a mile?

1743 yards in it.

So 1600 yards.

It's long.

It looks pretty flimsy.

It has to be said.

It doesn't look very strong.

But Tennant thinks to himself, well, hang on a minute.

Maybe, maybe

we could mour ships against this.

What happens if we can use it?

That, if he can, is going to be a game changer.

So taking two of his officers with him, he hurries over to conduct a quick survey.

And when he looks at it, you know, he thinks, well, yeah, it feels sturdy enough.

Will it take the strain of a large ship slapping into it with a, you know, a three-knot tidal current behind it?

You know, that is another question, but there's only one way to find out.

So he signals to Wolfhound, the destroyer on which he's had his passage over the channel, which is handling communications offshore.

And he asks her to send a personnel ship to the Eastern Mole to embark a thousand men.

So Wolfhound calls on the Queen of the Channel, which is a peacetime cross-channel steamer, which is now offshore at Marlin Abau, so really close, and immediately hurries over.

and eases her bow in at around six knots and gently nudging first her stern against the cronky pars, she slivers successfully alongside.

And the mole has taken the strain without any difficulty at all.

So Tennetz is thinking, oh my God, thank goodness, maybe, maybe the East Mole might offer a kind of lifeline that they desperately need.

So less than an hour later, the Queen of the Channel is loaded with 904 men and the captain's preparing to cast off.

He says, you know, how many more could she take?

Someone shouts from the mole.

And the skipper says, it's not a question of how many more, but whether we can get away with what we already have.

And unfortunately, his sixth sense is right because at 4.15 a.m.

on the 28th of May, as dawn is breaking and halfway across the channel, the queen of the channel is attacked by a lone enemy aircraft, bombs straddle the ship, breaking her back and her main propeller shop.

By stroke of good fortune, there's another ship en route.

So nearly all the men are able to be disembarked before the Queen of the Channel sinks.

But despite this disaster, The fact that the mole works is an incredible Phillip for Tennant and for all those trying to get back to to safety, and frankly, for the whole of the BEF.

Yeah, I mean, it is an amazing twist in this story.

Yeah, they're able to exploit it, though.

That's the interesting thing, isn't it?

Is it's right there, and they can use it.

So, at 4:36 a.m., Tennant signals asking for all vessels to go along the East Pier rather than off the beaches.

Yeah, and they start double stacking, yeah, exactly.

So, at 4:45, a second ship leaves the mole at 9.55, a third ship casts off packed with men.

By mid-morning, the pier's crammed with men.

The Lefwaff are overhead again, but haven't cottoned onto this yet, have they?

No, because of the mole is near the port, which is near the oil containers.

They can't see it.

So they can't see it.

You know, there's 10 tenths cloud anyway.

There's not a drop of wind.

You know, so that's another thing that's wrong with Dunkirk film because there aren't any sort of crashing breakers on the coast or anything like that on the shoreline.

Send you guys to get it.

And the Luftwaffe, you know, the...

The cloud base is low and it's even thicker and denser and lower over the port because of this thick pool of oily smoke.

So it's like having a massive umbrella over them, you know, shielding them for what they're doing.

You know, the Germans can't see.

Luftwaffe can't see this.

And it's incredibly difficult to hit this, even if they could see it.

Yeah.

You know, the cloud base is, what, you know, a thousand feet or something or 800 foot.

Your suka dive from is beginning his dive, you know, several thousand feet above that, 6,000 feet, 5,000 feet, something like that.

So you can't aim when you start your dive on the mole because you can't see it.

The only way you're going to attack that is not with a dive bomber.

It is with a JU88 or a Heinkel or something slipping underneath underneath the cloud base and coming in incredibly low.

But that in turn is incredibly dangerous.

And so hardly any of them are doing it, which is why it's not getting hit.

Where people are getting hit is out in the channel where the sky's clearer.

Yeah.

That's the point.

But the thing is, though, in these circumstances, nevertheless, Tennant realizes the sort of scale of the task.

So at 9.35 a.m., he says, at present, 2,000 men on a Dunkirk beach, 7,000 men on a dune for which I have no votes available.

They're now in need of water, which Army cannot supply.

Unlimited numbers are falling back on this area in situation at present.

In present circumstances, will shortly become desperate.

I think what's interesting about those numbers is they're tiny, aren't they?

When you consider how we know more than 300,000 men get off the beaches of Dunkirk, and here he is worrying about a couple of thousand, 7,000 hits.

It's again, it beggars belief the scale of this, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Surely, as you're as you're in his position, with it yet to have happened, and his helmet smells of sardines.

So what they need is more boats.

They need big ones along the mole that can moor alongside the mole and they need the smaller ones to take people off the beaches still.

So even with little boats, the more that can do the trip across the channel, the better.

There's a sense in there that also you create, if you've got so many boats going backwards and forwards, the Germans won't know what to pick as well in air attack, will they?

You just overwhelm what the Germans are capable of doing as well.

But of course, it's all secret.

So drawing vessels together has been quite difficult, hasn't it?

Yeah, it is.

But all the ships that can are heading to Dunkirk.

You know, the Royal Navy's reach is considerable.

You know, there's no ship anywhere, any port in the UK that can't reach another part of the UK within 24 hours.

So, you know, that's good.

They've got a number of naval commands in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Far East, so on.

You know, so obviously those can't be called upon.

But the British Isles are protected by five naval commands.

So that's Knorr, Portsmouth, Western Approaches, Rossyth, Orkneys, and Shetlands, which are then divided into sub-commands.

So Dover is a sub-command of Knorr, which is why you've only got a Vice-Admiral in charge of that area, which is what Bertram Ramsey is at that stage.

The ships operating in these commands are obviously the Navy part of the Naval's largest force, the Home Fleet, commanded by the completely brilliant Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, who's a total legend and completely brilliant later on in the summer.

You know, so they've got a big old job on their hands, but, you know, they can call upon a lot.

You know, it's the world's largest navy.

And so there are a lot of ships that can be sent over there straight around.

So anyway, that's the situation in China.

It's looking better by far and away from being out of the woods, but it is looking better.

You know, the Germans are being held at bay.

They're not overrunning Dunkirk quite as quickly as they'd feared.

And they now have this lifeline, which is the East Mole.

So that is a substantial glimmer of hope, which has stiffened resolves.

And also puts Churchill in a better situation, because the other thing is that overnight, 3rd Division has plugged that gap.

Monty's route march of 50 miles has been entirely successful.

The BEF is folding in on itself, so it's the lines that it needs to protect are smaller.

So that then requires less men, which means more men can fold in on the Lozing and head to Dunkirk.

So the situation is, it's still absolutely critical, but it's substantially better than it was 24 hours earlier.

And that's the key point.

There is a palpable glimmer of hope.

So at 5 p.m., Tuesday, the 28th of May, Churchill finally addresses his wider cabinet, some 25 men, different parties, all highly experienced parliamentary men.

And Churchill gives them a frank account of what's happened in the past fortnight and admits that the BEF is now being evacuated.

He says he expects 50,000 to be lifted.

Vauvo told them 100,000 would be a magnificent effort.

So, you know, again, you know, he's trying to be honest now and the situation has changed.

It's no longer kind of 40,000, 45,000.

You know, they're now daring to talk in terms of 100,000.

He says, says the public needs to be prepared for bad tidings.

And what's happening in northern France was truthfully, he says, the greatest military defeat for many centuries.

However, soon the war is going to be turned against their island and they need to prepare themselves for that.

But an invasion would be an immensely difficult thing for the Germans.

And Hitler would demand their fleet.

You know,

if they tried to sue for peace now, this is what this would look like.

Hitler would want their fleet, naval bases, much else besides.

A puppet government would be set up with someone like Oswald Mosley, the head of the British Union of Fascists.

On the other hand, he points out they've got plenty of reserves.

They've got the world's largest navy.

They've got air defenses.

They've got the world's only fully coordinated air defense system.

With a home advantage.

More fighters are being produced every week.

You know, the waters are amply mined and they've got Home Guard being, you know, the L L D V as

this point is, the local defense volunteers being mustered.

You know, they're a long way from needing to throw in the towel at this point is basically what he's saying.

Exactly.

Well, and another point, just before we get to my peerless impression of this moment, there are lots of British defense contracts in America that are coming to fruition right at this moment, aren't they?

This is the thing.

Britain has spent a vast amount of money on armaments in America.

The Mustlang is first line.

The Muslim.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So maybe, you know, and rifles, countless rifles.

So maybe the army right now hasn't got the kit it needs.

But as he says, you give it a moment, you buy the breathing space, and we have a chance.

This is the sort of paradox of the very well-alone moment, isn't it?

Is that Britain does feel on its own at this very moment.

But actually, if you can pull yourself away from that and look at actually what it has at its disposal, it's not

necessarily the end.

And he's quite right that the thing, the Navy will end up being part of being a German Navy and that Mosley will install a public government.

The terms can only be bad and the terms will be bad for Halifax is the truth.

They're not going to get anything out of this, are they?

No.

So he says we shall go on and we shall fight it out here or elsewhere.

And if at last the long story is to end, it were better it should end, not through surrender, but only when we are rolling senseless on the ground.

Boilerplate, Churchill.

It's gone well in this stuff's gone well in Parliament a moment ago earlier on in the day, isn't it?

That's the other thing to do.

So he's tested it out.

I mean, you always need to try your best material out first.

Yeah.

You can imagine Halifax standing at the back, sort of shaking his head, going, you know, there goes Prince and the old romantic.

But this stirs people.

And, you know, the bottom line is he now has the support of his wider cabinet.

They're all agreeing with this.

You know, the point is, this is the opportunity for dissent.

You know,

anyone wants to dissent, this is where they need to put their hands up.

And they don't.

They all agree.

And crucially, he's got Chamberlain.

So when the War Cabinet reconvenes, Churchill recounts what has just happened and stresses the response.

So after this, he then goes into War Cabinet and he says, I cannot recall having ever before heard a gathering of persons occupying high places in political life express themselves so emphatically.

So at this,

Halifax mentions Renaud's proposed appeal to President Roosevelt and whether it should be a joint message.

But he says nothing more of an appeal to Mussolini.

Churchill slaps that down.

He now even dismisses an appeal to the Americans.

He just says, no, that's it.

And that is that.

That is it.

It's amazing.

You know, that is the end of the matter.

Halifax has been snookered.

He's been completely neutered.

You know, the war cabinet, Churchill has got Chamberlain.

He's got Attlee.

He's got Greenwood.

He's got the wider cabinet.

Halifax is politically isolated.

That's the end of the matter.

That's the end of the matter.

It's absolutely amazing.

And in doing so, has massively increased his own authority, which had been pretty fragile up to that point.

Well, and cross-party authority, which is the important thing, because he needs cross-party authority until the Tory Party come round behind him, which they do as things progress, but until they do, he needs

everyone on board.

And I think it's interesting, is it within the same 24 hours that the situation has improved with regards to the evacuation, so is the political, it's the coincidence is quite extraordinary, isn't it?

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing.

It's amazing.

You literally couldn't make it up.

You know, make no mistake, you You know, Britain is still in terrific peril, but she does now have a chance to fight on, to pit herself, you know, against the best that Germany can throw at her.

And while the battle in France might have been lost, the war hasn't been.

And in Britain, one major crisis at least has been averted.

And

we started yesterday's episode with that quote from Lucas saying, you know, the fate of Britain, the fate of the Second World War, the fate of the whole free world rests on two things.

The ability of the BEF to be evacuated from Dunkirk and the split between Halifax and Churchill.

Well, that split has been resolved.

That has been sorted.

That is no longer an issue that is bringing,

potentially going to bring the downfall of the government and all that follows as a result of that.

So few.

You know, this is why Tuesday the 28th is looking up and why we're going to call this episode Glimmer of Hope.

Anyway, on the afternoon of the 28th of May,

we've moved on from National Days of Prayers and Black Mondays to Glimmer of Hope Tuesday.

Grey Tuesday.

Let's call it.

Shades of Grey Tuesday.

Shades of Grey Tuesday.

Black Monday, Grey Tuesday.

It's not sunlit yet.

Not sunlit.

That's quite a long way to the sunlit.

The sun comes up.

But Lord Gort on the afternoon of the 28th moves his command post to the Belgian King's Summer Palace overlooking the dunes and the sea at La Pan, just inside the Belgian border and some nine miles east of Dunkirk.

I mean, it's interesting.

They really do have command of the situation, the army, at this point in the BF, don't they?

They do.

They're holding the Germans back.

And it's tremendous, stirring stuff, isn't it?

People are engaged in fantastic stands.

And Henry Pownall writes, and so here we are back on the shores of France on which we landed with such high hearts over eight months ago.

I think we were a gallant band who little deserve this ignominious end to our efforts.

For myself, I am still stunned.

It all seems a bad dream from which I hope to wake.

I imagine most people felt like that.

Yeah, but at least these are the beaches, which is a lot more than could be said for the vast majority of the BEF.

But, you know, more are on the move that night.

And the vast majority of the BEF are successfully falling back within the main perimeter.

And the defence line along the River Esa and behind that to the canal line between Burgu and Ferns.

But some aren't, you know, and Calais's been sacrificed.

And so, too, of the second Gloucesters and the Four Fox and Bucks at Cassel and nearby Ledringham, who've held this, you know, they've held the Germans at bay on this isolated hill for a couple of days.

Then they try and break out overnight.

Most of them end up in the bag.

And of course, also, there's the considerable fighting at Hazbrook, where your grandfather was killed.

He paid the ultimate sacrifice, didn't he?

Yeah.

In this fighting, right at this moment.

so i mean you have an incredibly personal connection to this when you go to hasbrook you know it's it's a there's a railhead there

lots of brick buildings lots of brick buildings sort of modest little you know flanders town and you can see with the great open you know because it's flat you can see how you know how you defend it i did do a you know battlefield tour there with with the colonel with dad a very long time ago when they were involved in putting the plaque up and They had people from the rifles and, you know, they do that usual thing where they say to the soldiers, well,

where would you put your anti-tank weapons?

How would you defend this position?

And they all

come to the same conclusions, basically.

Well, you know, we can see them coming around that corner.

The reason these are all so successful is because these are strong points that the Germans can't ignore.

They have to turn and face them and get rid of them.

So Cassell and Letteringham, there's these hills where the

defenders have a kind of dominant position.

They have to be kind of worked over by the Germans and it's a process and it's the same as Hasabruck.

So these little stands are holding up the German effort and buying time for those trying to, you know, who are already back at Dunkirk or falling back.

So that's the key point.

And they're absolutely epic.

And each one of these little epic defenses is a story all of its own.

And, you know, large numbers of these end up either killed, wounded, or in the bag.

So sort of, you know, casualties of the casualty figures of the battle.

But these are, you know, they're properly heroic.

And, you know, your father's, grandfather's last stand there is, you know, it's immense.

It's incredible stuff.

It's incredible stuff, you know, and they are literally giving their lives to save others.

We did do an episode with my dad, the Colonel Ingram, who's researched it and found out what went on, which will be in our Dunkirk episodes from five years ago, where you'll hear him.

Episodes 141 to 148.

Yeah.

He didn't tell me to get a haircut doing that, but he may as well have done.

Anyway.

But Dadie Penna has now realised that the lack of news was not a good thing.

She writes in her diary.

She wonders whether the BF could possibly be saved.

She's reacting to the Belgian surrender.

Nothing short of of a miracle could save the situation on that part of the front now.

She's such an interesting barometer of how people are feeling.

She's so perceptive.

She does sense this renewed feeling of determination, not just within herself, but amongst everyone.

And she says, you know, she's enjoying the reports of the RAF's wonderful performance.

The daily bag of enemy planes, she writes, is now almost commonplace.

And certainly, you know, fighter command has a has a key thing, which is why my Battle of Britain book starts in May 1940, because Fighter Command enters the fray on the 23rd of May or 21st of May or whatever date it is.

But it's this period that fighter command gets a fighter command is there to defend Great Britain.

So the moment you're using it, it is there to defend Britain.

So fighter command has been playing its part and responsibility falls under 11 Group, which is South East England and London under Air Vice Marshal Keith Park.

For covering Dunkirk, Park has got 16 fighter squadrons at his disposal out of the 36 now left in fighter command.

And the rest are remaining as both a reserve and to protect other parts of the country.

So like Kesslering, Park is also facing the problem of range, although not so much from lack of fuel, but because it means operating outside Britain's defensive system.

So there's no radar cover over Dunkirk.

So he's forced to rely on inefficient and exhausting standing patrols, which are just, you know, so what that means is you fly over as a squadron of 12 planes and you beetle up and down the beach for a bit.

See if you bump into anyone.

Yeah,

you know, the chances are you are.

But you can't maintain that all the time, so you have to do it in concentrations because otherwise to get it there all the time, you're probably down to threes and sixes rather than 12s or 24s.

The Admiralty is demanding cover round the clock, but it's not possible.

So he goes over himself in his hurricane and then talks to the pilots.

And he quickly becomes convinced it's much better to send over two squadrons for some of the time rather than half a squadron or, you know, as I say, a VIC of three to provide non-stop cover, which is why, again, Dunkirk film is wrong because they would never send him over just three.

Just saying.

Well, we're going to get an episode.

Anyway, he's undoubtedly right and he gets his way, basically.

And he also makes sure that he rotates his squadrons regularly.

92 Squadron, for example, flies missions over the French coast on the 23rd and one on the 24th and then one channel patrol on the 25th and then it gets posted out of the way.

And those who'd earlier served in France, such as 32 Squadrons, Hurricane Squadron, you know, they've now done their bit and they're kept out of it completely, give them a chance to recuperate.

But the other thing that's helping the British cause, of course, is the weather.

You know, we've touched on this already, but basically the whole of that week of last week of May, Dunkirk is under 10 tense cloud with barely a breath of wind.

So this is not something that's going to blow over quickly.

You know, visibility is deteriorating.

Rain comes, then heavy cloud and rain.

And again, but no wind.

So the channel remains flat as a board.

So, you know, again, there's this other glimmer of hope, which is that the weather is playing into their hands.

And 18,000 men are evacuated that day, of which 12,000 are taken from the East Mole and nearly 6,000 from the beaches.

It's working.

It is looking better.

Yeah.

And you have most of them are being lifted up from the Dunkirk end, and there are more men pouring onto the beaches, particularly near Bray Dunes.

So Bill Tennant hears now that there's 5,000 milling around the dunes and beaches there.

So he sends off two of his officers and 15 men to see what they could organise.

But it's not 5,000, it's 25,000 men.

I mean, these numbers.

Divisions of men, you know, already there, exhausted, thirsty, hungry, and without, and leaderless.

And there's nothing like enough boats offshore.

So they signal, I must stress the need for boats and motor launches at Bray.

Much provisions for troops also needed.

So gathering momentum, but it's so interesting how everything, everything falls into place at the pace that's needed.

The coincidence and the serendipity of so much of this is extraordinary, isn't it?

Yeah.

That the Navy are, that they find the mole when they do, that Churchill gains the political capital he needs precisely the moment he needs it.

If you were a religious person, you'd say, well, that day a prayer worked.

The king was onto something.

And it just goes to show that, you know, 24 hours is a long time in this war and a long time in the politics of this war.

I mean, it's just amazing.

So that same evening, Admiral Ramsey from the dynamo room at Dover sends out a message asking for every available shallow draft power boat to be sent to the beaches as soon as possible.

So despite the embargo on the news of the evacuation, the Admiralty responds by combing the entire coast from Portsmouth to Norfolk for motorboats, lighters, barges, and of course their crews, and sends them all to Dunkirk.

This, of course, is the little boats, little ships heading to Dunkirk.

So by the end of the 28th of May, there is very definitely a glimmer of hope.

And there we have it.

Five days in May.

Five days in May.

I'm exhausted by this.

I mean, you know, every time I return to it, I just think it is the most amazing story.

And I am absolutely one day going to write write my novelized version,

my faction of the nine days of Dunkirk and do it to the end.

It's just so brilliant.

I just like the fact that a man is helmet smelter sardines is at the center of events.

I think that kind of detail.

What I really like, Jim, is that we've stopped where we have because we do know what's going to happen next, but

let's not talk about that because they didn't.

They didn't know the thing that now looks kind of inevitable in the way that it looks now as we look back through 85 years hindsight.

And also, if you want to know what happens next, we've podcasted about it before.

Episodes 141 and sort of seven or eight of those after that.

What I am drawn to is that, you know, the week before last, we did VE Day coverage and then immediately upon us is the anniversary.

So the 80th anniversary of V-Day, and then immediately upon us is the 85th anniversary of Dunkirk.

And you think of

this disaster, this thing where everything's hanging on a thread, and then you think of the victory five years later.

In a way, the great imponderable.

So I was talking about this last night and saying, you know, you know, just think, you know, D-Day is four years after this.

Yeah.

Where you're talking about, you know, 1,213 warships, 4,127 assault classes, 9,639 vessels, 12,590 aircraft, all part of D-Day, four

years after this.

I mean, it is nothing.

It's absolutely phenomenal.

What a turnaround!

Shows what democracies can do when they pull together, yeah.

Well, and you know, you're the thing that speeds the plow is how critical the situation is

and urgency, necessity, and urgency, and seriousness, and let's be honest, waste being prepared to waste tons of stuff in order to get to where you're getting to.

And I think it's and sacrifice.

I think it's the most amazing story.

I mean, it's literally a Phoenix from the flames story, isn't it?

It really, really is.

BF dies in the flames of Dunkirk.

Yeah, I've so enjoyed revisiting this.

And to do that kind of deep dive into the kind of, you know, the cabinet discussions has just been completely fascinating.

Yeah.

I'd like to say that those were impressions we were doing.

We didn't use some fancy AI to recreate the sound of Winston Churchill.

You know, I was Halifax momentarily.

I think there's no argument about that, Jim.

Anyway, thanks everyone for listening.

And Goering.

Yeah, it's the Goering that remains unsurpassed.

We will see you, hopefully, at We Have Ways Fest, 12th to 14th of September, at Blackpit Brewery, next next door to Silverstone.

A weekend of War Waffle.

WehaveWazefest.co.uk.

We very much look forward to seeing you.

Some amazing people coming to speak.

Amazing people coming to speak.

Thanks very much for listening.

We will see you all again very soon.

And cheerio.

Cheerio.