Day 5 Sunday, March 24th Dunkirk



leaving port and lighthouse

Because we left Poole later than scheduled on Saturday, we did not dock in Dunkrk until about 1300 instead of 0800 and so we had a much reduced time ashore.  We spent the morning reading and being lazy!  It was a lovely, sunny mild day and so the lack of time available was a pity.. We had an early lunch before being quickly off the boat and onto a “wartime memories” coach excursion.

The departure from Dunkirk quay side 

the Dunkirk beach memorial

was not very picturesque (very industrial) but we were soon on the outskirts of the town and made our way to the memorial at the top of the beach where the 1940 evacuation (operation “dynamo”) took place. Our guide had photographs of the original events and we could see how it all unfolded in the area around us.

Our next stop was the fort created in the dunes during the 

part of the fort in the dunes

19^th century to protect France from attack from the east.  It was one of a series of forts from the Swiss border to the North Sea.  It was very solidly constructed but had suffered from bombing in the 2^nd

the fort in the dunes

 world war and some French soldiers were killed by a German bomb.  After invading the area, the Germans installed radar on part of the fort.  It is now a museum/exhibition destination and had information about operation dynamo.



English portion of Dunkirk cemetery

We then went to a corner of Dunkirk

the engraved glass window

 cemetery which was allotted to British forces and maintained by the war graves commission.  It had a small chapel with an engraved window depicting the beach struggle.  There were hundreds of graves including several of Battle of Britain pilots.



the barn with the oak trees

Our fourth destination was to a field several miles away where some British soldiers had been captured during the 1940 retreat to Dunkirk.  100 of them had been herded into a

the peace memorial

cowshed by German SS troops and then murdered.  The site has become a memorial and also has oak trees grown in England planted in avenues plus a peace sculpture and a mound dedicated to reconciliation.

We then made our way back to the Astoria which then began its long departure out of Dunkirk.  So the tour went well but we felt cheated that we could not spend more time in the town.