In the film Dunkirk, the protagonists tries (along with many other enlisted men) to get on various ships evacuating through his own personal initiative, rather than taking orders from an officer. In fact, after being separated from his squad in the opening minutes, he doesn't report to any sort of superior for the remainder of the film. He also encounters a squad of highlanders, seemingly acting on their own initiative, who commandeer a beached Belgian trawler in the hope of escaping.

In reality, in what state did the British army arrive to Dunkirk, and was the evacuation conducted in good order? What sort of challenges did the British High Command face in order to rally, debrief, and redeploy the men once they were evacuated to England?

Why, in the film, were the soldiers standing in lines on the beach facing the ocean, instead of digging in and creating some kind of cover to protect themselves?

Which scenario would an Allied solider involved in the Dunkirk pocket be most likely to survive the war? Evacuated to Britain or captured by the Germans?

Would the evacuated 300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk have a lower or higher chance of surviving the war compared to those captured and sent to POW camps by the Germans? Considering that those 300,000 soldiers would be sent back into combat to fight another day.

There actually was a case where a pilot landed his Spitfire on the beach, then burned it to prevent capture. It also happened to a Hurricane.

How close were the Germans a week before the end of the main British evacuation?

In the beginning of the film a small groups of Brits are shot at by Germans in the town on Dunkirk and then (the Germans) engage the French very close to the beach. This doesn't seem right to me. It seems wrong that they were less than 300 yards from the beach yet didn't use mortars or seem to attack the beach front for the rest of the film.

What difference did the saved men actually make?

I mean technically that is impossible to answer, and of course the successful evacuation was a major morale boost.

But was it absolutely critical to the war effort, whether the situation then (to prepare for the invasion) or long term (men-power and experienced soldiers for fighting) to save those 300,000 men?

Lay articles on the subject tend to list the total number of troops evacuated from Dunkirk, but fail to provide a breakdown of that number by nation. Were the armies of other nations present at Dunkirk (I know the French were at least), and how many of each were evacuated and how many were left behind?

The film has been accused of whitewashing the events that took place. How and in what capacity were colonial and other non-western troops involved with the battle of Dunkirk?

On wikipedia it lists Belgian/Canadian/Polish troops being at Dunkirk as well but the details of their actions and numbers are scare. Can anyone expand on the role this soldiers played?

#SPOILER

Is there a particular reason a Spitfire pilot who ran out of fuel over the Dunkirk evacuation site wouldn't try to land within British controlled territory? I can't find the Spitfire's glide ratio but it didn't have particularly low wing loading and the pilot in the film wasn't very high. (If I followed the film correctly - is Nolan physically incapable of telling a story linearly???) Even if he was, I would have thought he'd be better off circling British territory for a while. The pilot in the film was obviously determined to defend the evacuation site for as long as possible, in any case, and circling within British controlled territory would have furthered that goal.

"Cheers." :P

P.S. How ****ing good was Tom Hardy? LOVE that guy. Great decision by Nolan to avoid heightened drama and let the characters' actions speak for themselves and Hardy's performance was exemplary of this.

What happened to the allied materiel left on the beach? I believe the Nazis employed captured French armor in Normandy, did they do the same with British equipment?

I understand that of the French soldiers evacuated, many chose to be repatriated after France had surrendered rather than remain and join de Gaulle's Free French forces.

Can anyone tell me more about this - how was it organised under wartime conditions? Were the men simply demobbed from the French army and allowed to go home to civilian life, or was there any internment etc? How were the soldiers received back home?

In the movie, it seemed like there might have been some resentment between branches of the British forces, or at least between the RAF and the other British troops. To what extent is that accurate?

We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory.

Upon their return to England, one of the evacuated soldiers says, "The old man [the yacht skipper] couldn't even look us in the eye." Later on, on the train the soldiers are ashamed to make eye contact with the man at the window who, to their surprise, hands them a couple beers before everyone starts cheering.

By saying what I quoted above, was Churchill actually trying to assign the evacuation the attributes of victory? Was 'fight on the beaches' speech as impactful then as it is popularly made out to be today? Is there any gauge on public sentiment toward Dunkirk before Churchill spoke?

Also, I'm not sure I followed what happened when the civilian yacht shoved off leaving the Navy personnel on the dock. Were Navy personnel supposed to man the yacht? If so, would there be any punishment for what the civilian captain did?

I've read that there were numerous civilians who helped rescue the British forces. What was the experience like for them? How many civilian casualties were there? Are there any notable stories historians here might be aware of?

How much would the capture or extermination of all Allied troops at Dunkirk helped the Axis powers win the war?

Seems as though the Brits were expecting a German invasion, which came in the Battle of Britain. How likely was an across the channel invasion to succeed? Considering the difficulties had on D Day which was an insane combined effort going the other way across the channel, I have a hard time seeing a German channel invasion succeeding.

Let's say the evacuation failed and the britain lost their army in france.

How quickly could fresh troops be raised in britain? 2.How much pressure would the canadian government be, to send more men seeing as that is the closest ally in the war, and how quickly could fresh troops be sent to Britain for the percieved invasion of england by germany?

How many troops from various colonies were in england at the time thr battle took place?

Having played a lot of Warthunder and knowing a bit about boom and zooming, turn and burning and energy fighting. I question the aerial combat tactics used by the Germans.

How realistic was the portrayal of air combat?

I'm more interested in actual tactics used by the RAF and Luftwaffe rather than, let's say the correct paint scheme.

Also, was it realistic for bombers to fly this close to the ground without receiving any ground fire by both rifle fire and AAA?

Why did Guiderian stop his advance and allow the evac in the first place, doesn't it go against German doctrine to not exploit an encirclement?

In the movie there are is a scene at the mole that caught my eye. When Commander Bolton is asking where the ships are from, we see a ship from Dublin (hard to heard so maybe?) and next to it we see a smaller ship.
Is that ship from Dublin one of the ships from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company And is that smaller ship the Tamzine?

Because it was such a brief scene I was not able to clearly identify the ships in question and the short verbal and visual clips are what lead me to ask this.

How important were those 400000 troops at Dunkirk in the bigger picture? Had they not been evacuated, would there have been a possibility of Britain losing the Battle of Africa, for instance?

Was there any French plan, even on paper, for invading Germany in the event of WW2?

Late question here, was there any involvement from the hurricane fighters during the evacuation. How did it compare with the spitfire?

This was in the papers this week "‘Dunkirk’ review in USA Today warns ‘no lead actors of color’ in WWII-inspired film". source, which led to riduicule.

What was the ethnic make up of the soldiers in Dunkirk? (In terms of the British standard Office of National Statistics categories White; Asian; Black; Other (which it then breaks down into further categories). What would be the percentages? Surely there must be some data on this somewhere?

So in the movie it looks like a pretty motley crew of men made it back to England. Some English, some French and I guess a few from other countries. I get the impression that military units had all gotten mixed up. How did the British go about reorganizing units? Did they liquidate them and then rebuild or try to find units and then replenish them with new dudes? I guess what I'm asking about is if I was part of a certain unit before Dunkirk would I still be after? Also how long was the 'honeymoon' period before they were reorganized and put back to work?

Was Dunkirk more of a battle or retreat?

Just watched the movie yesterday and saw that the British did not allow the French into the evacuation and that during Dunkirk itself, the French were not told about the operation. My question is, how did the French and the English fare after this operation? Did relations between the two started to worsen? What was their response to the situation?