Dunkirk Quotes

• We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Strength, Beach

  Hansard 4 June 1940, col. 796

  162 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dunkirk has fallen... with it has ended the greatest battle of world history. Soldiers! My confidence in you knew no bounds. You have not disappointed me.

  Adolf Hitler

  War, Soldier, Battle

  99 Copy quote

• We must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations

  Winston Churchill

  War, Victory, World

  Winston Churchill (1986). “Their Finest Hour”, p.103, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sea from Dunkirk to Dover during these days of the evacuation looked like any coastal road in England on a bank holiday. It was solid with shipping.

  Douglas Bader

  Holiday, Sea, Dover

  Douglas Bader (2006). “Douglas Bader: Fight for the Sky”, p.19, Pen and Sword

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• We were all flying around up and down the coast near Dunkirk looking for enemy aircraft which seemed also to be milling around with no particular cohesion.

  Douglas Bader

  Flying, Enemy, Cohesion

  Douglas Bader (2006). “Douglas Bader: Fight for the Sky”, p.19, Pen and Sword

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in the lull between bursts of gunfire and accompanied the fleeing refugees who blocked the roads. It was as though the weather was preparing a glorious requiem for the death of Europe.

  Eva Ibbotson

  Summer, Flower, Air

  "A Song for Summer".

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• They fought as they revelled, fast, fiery, and true, And, though victors, they left on the field not a few; And they who survived fought and drank as of yore, But the land of their heart's hope they never saw more, For in far, foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade.

  Thomas Davis

  Lying, Heart, Land

  1845 The Spirit of the Nation,'The Battle-Eve of the Brigade'.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Far in foreign fields from Dunkirk to Belgrade
  Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade.

  Thomas Davis

  Lying, Soldier, Fields

  1845 The Spirit of the Nation,'The Battle-Eve of the Brigade'.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• What a joy it is to read a book that shocks one into remembering just how high one's literary standards should be.... a tour de force by one of England's best novelists.... Atonement is a spectacular book; as good a novel - and more satisfying... - than anything McEwan has written....sublimely written narrative.... The Dunkirk passage is a stupendous piece of writing, a set piece that could easily stand on its own.

  Noah Richler

  Book, Writing, Joy

  12 Copy quote

• McEwan's Atonement…truly dazzles, proving to be as much about the art and morality of writing as it is about the past…. The middle section of Atonement, the two vividly realized set pieces of Robbie's trek to the Channel and Briony's experiences with the wounded evacuees of Dunkirk, would alone have made an outstanding novel…. There is wonderful writing throughout as McEwan weaves his many themes — the accidents of contingency, the sins of absent fathers, class oppression — into his narrative, and in a magical love scene.

  Noah Richler

  Art, Father, Writing

  12 Copy quote