Last night we decided to go over to Dunkirk today. It is only about 40 minutes from our campground in Belgium. Our first thought was to get a campground there, but none of the campgrounds appealed to us or required a minimum 7 day stay, so in the end we decided to drive over to Dunkirk and return to our campground in Belgium at the end of the day.
It was a nice drive through the Flanders countryside, and the border crossing caught us by surprise in a small village. Once again there was no indication until we saw the sign indicating we were entering France and all the signs changed from Flemish to French.
Dunkirk is the sight of the famous evacuation of 400,000 French and British soldiers during WWII. The Germans were in the process of fully defeating the combined French and British armies in 1940. Early in the campaign about 500,000 British and French troops were surrounded at Dunkirk. This included most of the British Army. The priority for the evacuation was the British forces as it was pretty clear that the French were going to surrender to the Germans and the British were going to fight on.
The British government committed a large part of their navy to the withdrawal despite the great danger to the ships from the German air force. In addition hundreds of pleasure craft manned by their civilian owners were asked to assist, as well as significant numbers of French navy vessels. The British initially hoped to rescue 40 to 50,000 of their troops, but in the end they saved over 300,000. The French defended the shrinking pocket while the British were given priority for withdrawal. The French troops fought valiantly to hold off the Germans on the ground. The last three days priority was given to withdrawing French troops and nearly 100,000 were withdrawn to Britain.
The 300,000 British troops saved went on to make up the core of the British forces that participated in the liberation of France in 1944. Unfortunately, the majority of the 100,000 French troops were returned to France just as the government surrendered to the Germans.
After the museum we headed into the city to take a look at the port and the town hall. The town hall was largely destroyed during WWII, but has been rebuilt to its original look and is now a UNESCO site.
English is funny with place names. English uses the Flemish spelling for the French city of Dunkerque, but for the Flemish city of Ieper 30 miles from Dunkirk we use the French spelling Ypres.
After we had finished with Dunkirk we realized there was still time for more exploring so we decided to return to the Witches Kettle to enjoy the ambiance of the place. When we arrived it was much busier and Lena had her hands full, she hit us with a flurry of Flemish which we didn’t understand, but one of the customers translated for us. We were to pick our beer out of the cooler and bring it to her to pour.
Since the place was full we asked our impromptu translator if we could join him and had a great conversation about beer, economics and politics. We asked what he does for a living and it turns out he runs a campground which competes with the one we are staying at. We promised him we would stay at his place next time we are passing through.
We may not be regulars at the Witches Kettle, but we won’t forget the couple of hours we spent there.