Miracles and myths: The Dunkirk Evacuation – Part 1: Where was the RAF?

On 10 May 1940, Hitler’s forces suddenly opened their offensive in Western Europe. Attacking through neutral Belgium and Luxembourg, they soon shattered the Allied defences and threw the British and French armies into disarray. Within 10 days, the Luftwaffe ground down RAF fighter squadrons operating as part of the ‘Advanced Air Striking Force’, sent in support of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France. Hurricane fighter pilots, though they had fought heroically, were vastly outnumbered and forced to retreat with the remnants of their squadrons among the retreating armies and fleeing civilians ¹.

The survivors of these squadrons would very soon be withdrawn, and fighter squadrons operating from Britain would be tasked with providing air cover for the BEF as they fell back to the northern French coast. However, Wehrmacht Panzer divisions had punched through the Allied lines and drove for the main British embarkation and supply ports in France. By 26 May, both Calais and Boulogne had fallen to the Germans, leaving the small port and seaside resort town of Dunkirk as the only location from which to evacuate the BEF.

One of the greatest myths of the Second World War was that the RAF did not do enough to protect British soldiers trapped in the Dunkirk salient or to support the Royal Navy warships which were sent to evacuate them. From the 27 May, the second day of ‘Operation Dynamo’, the operation to rescue the BEF from the beaches of Dunkirk, the RAF began a supreme effort to beat off Luftwaffe air attacks on British vessels crossing the English Channel, lifting troops from the beaches or loading them aboard at the Mole. Fighter Command would commit 16 front line fighter squadrons to the fray in order to provide continuous air cover throughout the evacuation. On that first day alone, 287 fighter sorties were flown over the approaches to the port ².

Over the nine days of operations, the RAF carried out 171 reconnaissance, 651 bombing and 2,739 fighter sorties, losing 177 aircraft, including 106 fighters, bringing the total number of fighters lost in the whole Battle of France campaign to 250. The losses over Dunkirk reduced the strength of Fighter Command to 570 operation fighters; 280 Spitfires and 290 Hurricanes, the latter of which included three squadrons in France.

With these numbers, Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding of Fighter Command, in his 3 June air assessment to the War Cabinet, had gloomily predicted that his squadrons could not guarantee anything more than 48 hours of air superiority against a concerted Luftwaffe attack ³.

It is, therefore, clear that the RAF made a tremendous effort and endured much sacrifice to provide air cover for the evacuation of the BEF throughout Operation Dynamo, almost to a point of imperiling the air defences of Britain itself.

However, in spite of their overwhelming effort, the slur against the RAF began as soon as the evacuation ended. A familiar series of remarks from the mouths of many evacuated British soldiers during and after the ordeal included ‘Where is the RAF?’ and ‘We never saw a fighter!’ ⁴.

Despite the complaints of their comrades in arms in the years and decades that followed, evidence of the RAF’s role in the evacuation is ubiquitous, especially within the records of the War Office and Admiralty pertaining to Operation Dynamo. Within ADM 199/786, especially, there are some striking accounts which bear testament to the consistent role of the RAF in the events at Dunkirk, while WO 106/1613 contains official evidence of the herculean efforts made by Fighter Command squadrons, already decimated and disorganised after the Battle of France, against overwhelming odds and under the most strained circumstances.

A number of reports from Royal Navy destroyers described the presence of the RAF in the skies above Dunkirk. One report from the commander of HMS Montrose, dated 2 June, described the crossing over the Northern Channel to Dunkirk on 27 May:

‘The weather was calm and fine on the way across, with fairly high clouds. At one period a tremendous air battle was heard going on above the clouds but none of the actual fighting was seen’ (ADM 199/786) ⁵.

In his report of 19 June, the commander of HMS Wivern recorded the following for Friday 31 May:

‘No interference from enemy action was experienced on passage, though between F.G. Buoy and W. Buoys some bombing was observed about a mile ahead, apparently ineffective. RAF fighters soon appeared and no further enemy air action was observed’ (ADM 199/786) ⁶.

Wivern made the passage, embarked a contingent of troops at Dunkirk, and returned to Dover without incident that day. However, during the early hours of the following morning, Saturday 1 June, as Wivern crossed the Channel on another run to Dunkirk, they observed another ship coming under attack from German fighters. Wivern’s anti-aircraft crews immediately engaged the fighters, but the ship’s captain also noted the fast response of the RAF to the enemy attack:

‘After passing F.G. Buoy, 9 fighters were observed and at first thought to be friendly. They were later seen to be Messerschmitts and soon after this was established they attacked a ship about 3 cables on the port quarter with tracer ammunition. Fire was opened and was effective in preventing further attacks. Other fighters approached later and were identified as Spitfires’ (ADM 199/786) ⁷.

HMS Sabre had the most active involvement in the evacuation of all Royal Navy ships which took part in Dynamo, and made more round trips than most. Sabre’s commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Dean, who would be awarded the Distinguished Service Order for the conduct of his ship throughout Dynamo ⁸, recorded persistent air attacks during the evacuation, but also the active presence of the RAF.

On the morning of 28 May, for instance, while Sabre stood off the entrance of Dunkirk harbour alongside Montrose, waiting to embark troops from the Mole, they observed “a forced-landed” Hurricane aircraft on the beach west of Dunkirk’. A motor boat was launched to recover the pilot, but the effort failed when they ran aground in a ‘falling tide’ (ADM 199/786) ⁹.

On 1 June, as Dynamo was reaching its climax, Sabre stood off Bray Dunes, east of Dunkirk, and sent boats in to take troops off the beach. While the ship was taking troops from a tug on orders from ‘Vice-Admiral Dover’, they came under air attack. Sabre’s account of the incident bears out that RAF intervention had a mitigating impact:

‘During this time a single aircraft (apparently a Messerschmitt 109) approached and made some rather half-hearted machine gun attacks. Intense A.A. fire prevented these from being pressed home. There was also an unsuccessful dive bombing attack by a Junkers 87. Numerous British fighters were seen, and our freedom from serious interference was presumably due to them’ (ADM 199/786) ¹⁰.

Even within the War Office records documenting the course of the evacuation, one can find testaments from the Army to the immense undertakings of the RAF to ensure that the BEF returned home safely.

Such praise was not understated. According to the minutes of the Chiefs of Staff meeting of 3 June, Air Marshal Peirse outlined the desperate state of Fighter Command to the heads of the other services, describing the command as ‘completely disorganised’. It was clear that the strain upon the front line fighter squadrons was becoming intolerable, with four squadrons being cobbled together from the remnants of eight in order to sustain patrol duty.

Peirse plainly told his Army and Navy counterparts that if fighter patrols were required over Dunkirk at dusk that day, as well as a dawn patrol on the morning of 4 June, Fighter Command would need to summon its three intact squadrons in the north. Mercifully, the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, informed Peirse that the final round trip by Royal Navy vessels would be made under the cover of darkness, meaning a dusk patrol would not be necessary and that only a dawn patrol would be required (WO 106/1613).

In the opinion of retired Royal Marine officer and military historian, Major General Julian Thompson, the claims of returning British soldiers who complained that they never saw the RAF in the skies over Dunkirk belies the reality of what their Air Force colleagues actually accomplished for their sake. ‘Although aircraft might not have been visible overhead for most of the time’, in Thompson’s view ‘the RAF’s superb performance was critical in keeping the Luftwaffe from having a free run over the bridgehead, and without it only a fraction of the BEF would have been evacuated’ ¹¹.

On 4 June, the need for RAF air cover for Operation Dynamo came to an end when the evacuation was formally terminated. On the following day, 5 June, the recently-appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir John Dill, wrote a moving letter to the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Cyril Newall, in which he paid a shining tribute to the RAF (WO 106/1613):