Dunkirk

British troops line up on the beach at Dunkirk to await evacuation.
(Source)

In May of 1940 the German Wehrmacht stood just outside the channel port of Dunkirk. 400,000 men were trapped, there was no way out. What the Germans had tried to do in four years from 1914 to 1918, and failed to do, had now been done in just a few short weeks. The French and British armies on the Continent were defeated. All that remained was for the Germans to mop up resistance.

Hitler halted the panzer divisions to let Hermann Göring's Luftwaffe finish the job.

They failed and what followed, while a defeat, was turned into a victory five years later. Had the British Expeditionary Force not escaped from Dunkirk, odds are that there would have been no D-Day invasion in June of 1944.

Would the Germans have won the war? Maybe. But for the bravery exhibited on those Channel beaches and in the waters off those beaches and in the skies above, it's a distinct possibility that much of Western Europe would now be under German rule.

Or perhaps Russian. We shall never know. Dunkirk will stand forever for what it was, a shining example of bravery, perseverance, and a refusal to surrender.

Going to the movies later today.

AAR to follow...