Wednesday, July 26, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
9
Commentary...
‘Dunkirk’ is a magnificent of World War II battle
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
“Dunkirk” is a magnifi-
cent telling of an extraordi-
nary story.
It is a visceral, gut-
wrenching depiction of the
evacuation of British (and
some French) forces from
the English Channel port of
Dunkirk in France in 1940
— a World War II defeat that
should have been a catastro-
phe for the Allies. Thanks to
the extraordinary courage of
ordinary people, utter catas-
trophe was averted, and a
defeat was turned into a kind
of victory.
Director Christopher
Nolan wisely eschews the
“big picture” of the war to
focus on three intersecting
and representative stories:
the men on the beach trying
desperately to survive in the
face of a German onslaught
from the air; a father, his
son and the son’s friend who
are part of the flotilla of
tiny watercraft that set out
to rescue them; and a trio
of Royal Air Force (RAF)
Spitfire fighter pilots who
wing across the Channel in a
forlorn hope of providing air
cover for the evacuation.
In 1940, the Allied
armies in France were reel-
ing from an unexpectedly
swift and efficient assault
by the Wehrmacht forces of
Nazi Germany. Tank spear-
heads had shredded Allied
defenses in what was being
called blitzkrieg — lightning
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war. Some 400,000 British
Army and French troops
pulled back to the English
Channel to be evacuated to
Britain. The Germans had
them pinned on the beach,
against the sea.
It is still a matter of con-
siderable historical debate
as to why the Germans did
not roll onto the beaches
and destroy the vulnerable
and demoralized Allies. Der
Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler him-
self, called for a pause in
ground operations.
In retrospect, the deci-
sion may have cost the Third
Reich the war, and it looks
like one of several bone-
headed moves by Hitler as
Supreme Warlord. But in
the context of the time, there
were reasons.
The Wehrmacht’s very
success had worn it down to a
nub. Troops were running on
Pervitin — basically meth-
amphetamine — and they
were crashing. While the
tank spearheads were highly
effective, there weren’t actu-
ally that many tanks in the
field, and they needed main-
tenance and refitting. And a
couple of stinging, desperate
Allied counterattacks had
raised fears in Hitler and the
German High command that
the extended German forces
were actually at risk.
Hitler and his gener-
als were veterans of World
War I, and while they had
innovated a new kind of
warfare in 1939-40, they
were still haunted by the
spectre of their nation’s
defeat in the 1914-18 con-
flict. In 1918, the Germans
had torn through Allied lines
in a great spring offensive
that looked like it would
take Paris and win the war.
But the offensive ran out
of steam, the reeling Allies
recovered and counterat-
tacked, and by the fall it was
Germany that was forced to
sue for peace.
So in 1940, it looked like
the better part of wisdom to
hold back the tanks, let the
soldiers get some desper-
ately needed rest and let the
Luftwaffe pound the trapped
British Army into the sand
from the air.
It should have worked.
The first part of
“Dunkirk” vividly portrays
the desperate situation on
the beach and at the jetty,
as Stuka dive bombers
screamed out of the sky to
bomb the men lined up in
their serried ranks and the
navy ships that were trying to
load them up and take them
off. Anyone who has stud-
ied World War II history has
read of the paralyzing terror
engendered by the shriek of
those planes. Experiencing
the movie brings that
home in gut-clenching
fashion.
It was the courage of a
few pilots and a horde of
boatmen that saved the day.
Much to the bitterness of the
army troops, the RAF was
mostly missing in action dur-
ing the evacuation, unable
to provide air cover from
the terrorizing Luftwaffe.
The British had lost a lot
of Spitfires and Hurricanes,
their mainline fighter air-
craft, in the Battle of France,
and the British command
was holding back planes for
what they knew would be a
life-or-death defense of the
home island. Only a precious
few Spitfires were spared to
try to take a bite out of the
Luftwaffe assault — and
they did, at the grave risk
and sacrifice of the handful
of RAF pilots.
The ordinary citizenry
of the Channel coast rallied
to their nation’s call and a
flotilla of pleasure boats,
fishing craft — just about
anything that would float
— crossed the narrow moat
in what has to be the mod-
ern world’s finest mobiliza-
tion of a civilian population
to run into the guns, where
they rescued 10 times more
than the 30,000 troops Prime
Minister Winston Churchill
had hoped to evacuate from
Dunkirk.
The film is not all hero-
ics and self-sacrifice. There
is panic and sheer, brute sur-
vivalism on full display. It is
a very human drama.
A few critics have
remarked on the absence
of Churchill from the
story. It’s a strange criti-
cism. “Dunkirk” is all about
immersion in a very imme-
diate moment during a brief
window in time when sur-
vival — personal more than
national — was at stake. It
is that film and not some
other.
“Dunkirk” is not a film
to “enjoy,” but rather one to
experience, and through that
to gain an appreciation of
what we are capable of when
our backs are to the sea and
hope seems lost.
“Dunkirk” is currently
playing at Sisters Movie
House.
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