Posted on 07/20/2017 6:29:23 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Never has so much ignorance been rendered on such a great feat by so few.
Such is the historical record of reviewers of the new movie, "Dunkirk."
First, a brief historical primer. Dunkirk was the site of the British Army's evacuation from northern France in May-June 1940. The evacuation was made necessary after the British Army in France, deployed as the British Expeditionary Force, was encircled by a rapidly advancing German army. Thanks to the immense courage of rearguard forces, RAF pilots, and British civilians (who lent their boats to the effort), 200,000 British soldiers and 140,000 French, Belgian and Polish soldiers were saved from capture.
Now to the reviews...
At USA Today, Brian Truitt laments "the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color." This, Truitt explains, "may rub some the wrong way."
Let me be clear. The "some" that might be offended are the same "some" that attempt to swim with polar bears and saltwater crocodiles. The Washington Free Beacon's Alex Griswold beat me to it, explaining
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Lena Dunham should redo the color purple playing whoopi Goldberg’s part.
The importance of Dunkirk, in the 20/20 look-back, is that it greatly shortened WW2. Without the save of so many irreplaceable British Army lives (330k) & units, the subsequent saves at El Alamein and India’s Eastern Border would have been less likely. Think of Operation Torch (North Africa) without the British resistance in North Africa over the 2 years from Dunkirk? would it have happened in November, 1942 or rather much later?
The time it takes to make an effective, veteran infantryman and his units, is at least a year with time in actual combat. New troops, even with best of training, have far higher casualty rates than the vets saved at Dunkirk so the ‘multiplier’ effect makes the 330k saved that much bigger.
While the left goes to re-write history, more specifically, they mean to de-white history.
The concerns and whims of the Left are predictable and ignorable. Now the movie is on my must-see list.
I love that movie! LOL...especially when the Zulus sing in homage to the unbelievable courage of the white adversaries.
Don’t tell Hollywood about Adowa fought in the same year. They would love to do that movie.
Best movie line about Dunkirk is in “The Devil’s Brigade”, when the Canadian commander tells the American in charge of the combined Canadian-American force that some of his men were at Dunkirk, and could relay some of their knowledge and experience to the raw Americans. The American replies “That would be true if you won at Dunkirk”...
The time it takes to make an effective, veteran infantryman and his units, is at least a year with time in actual combat. New troops, even with best of training, have far higher casualty rates than the vets saved at Dunkirk so the ‘multiplier’ effect makes the 330k saved that much bigger.
THIS.
Also, if all or most of those BEF forces had been captured at Dunkirk, it would have left the British Isles wide open for immediate invasion. WWII as we know it would have probably been over before it even started.
The bulk of the forces numbers wise evacuated to England were actually the Free French under I believe DeGaul. There was a movie made at the time about this which was pretty good it staring Greer Garson and immortalized the song White Cliffs of Dover.
He must have gone through the PC education system now prevalent in the USA and actually believe that rubbish. This 'person' is a living example of the nightmare forecast by George Orwell. A few more like him and the next movie will show an army of LBGTQ heroes reluctantly swimming the channel back to an England that is actually longing to join up with their European comrades. A few more films like that and Bingo! Mission Accomplished!
I believe that you are in error here although the French soldiers were a large portion of the evacuees. (FYI: Since France had not yet surrendered, they were not 'technically' Free French - smile!)
From Walter Lord's excellent book, "The Miracle of Dunkirk" (1982), comes this statistic; About 338,000 men were rescued in about 11 days. Of these some 215,000 were British and 123,000 were French, of whom 102,250 escaped in British ships.
As for General De Gaulle, he was commanding troops south of Dunkirk at Abbeville where he failed to break the German lines in an attempt to open an escape corridor for Dunkirk. De Gaulle had several roles aside from military in those last days of independent France and escaped to London on June 17th, 1940.
Very few of the French evacuated from Dunkirk stayed to fight as Free French. There was a short operational lull between Dunkirk and the final German assault across the Somme and Oise Rivers, and in that time, most of French troops were returned to France within a week of the evacuation. Since the German “Sickle Stroke” through the Ardennes had removed French 1st, 7th and 9th Armies from their Order of Battle, the French needed all the troops they could get. Unfortunately, the Germans didn’t give them the time to reorganize their forces, and the French troops returned from Britain were not reorganized into cohesive fighting formations.
The “Hamilton Effect”.
If it attempts to be historically accurate, I’ll go see the movie.
If there had been even one non-historical casting decision to satisfy the PC freaks, a black or some female super woman who saves the day, I would have given the movie the same middle finger I’ve given every other movie the last 20 years or so.
> Thanks to the immense courage of rearguard forces... <
It is worth mentioning that most of those rearguard forces were French. They fought well, and did much to save the Allied forces at Dunkirk.
The French rearguard troops surrendered on June 4, 1940. That was only AFTER the last of the British rearguard troops had been evacuated.
The French in WW II have gotten a bad rap. They weren’t the “surrender monkeys” some wags like to portray them as.
How ‘bout remaking “Shaka Zulu” with a white guy in the lead role.
Can’t wait till a movie about MLK is cast with a white guy!
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