| It is true that the withdrawal was a unilateral British decision and the French wanted to continue fighting. It is also true that most of the rearguard were French and were, presumably, ordered to destroy any heavy weaponry. Anyone who believes that the French needed the British to tell them to fight or make them obey orders at gunpoint clearly has a very poor, and highly inaccurate, view of French soldiery. > ... shot at by the BEF ... 123,000 were French and 198,000 were British Maybe the British weren't very good shots? More seriously, this might be alluding to the fact that the British were originally given priority for embarkation from the French admiralty. This was changed part way through the evacuation but did mean that the rearguard was almost exclusively French troops. Again, though, whoever came up with the suggestion that French troops needed to be shot at to follow orders is a fairly nasty Francophobe masquerading as a Britophobe (probably not a word). It's hard to comment on the RAF bit. I mean, where else were they meant to fly to? It's a weird analysis, the BEF lost ~70k soldiers attempting to help in the defence of France and Belgium. It seems to suggest that did it to spite the French or something. Very odd. |
Bit of a stretch for "almost". The entire 51st Highland Division stayed as part of the rearguard, and few if any of them made it home. [1]
Possibly apocryphal: "One Highlander on the beaches of Dunkirk was overheard telling a comrade: 'If the English surrender too, it's going to be a long war'”
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_(Highland)_Division#Franc...