'Dunkirk' Reminds Leaders That Words

Can Inspire A Nation

Carmine Gallo Contributor i

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 Churchill’s words and style transformed Dunkirk into a symbol of British courage.

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A statue of Winston Churchill is silhouetted by 'Big Ben', and the Houses of Parliament in
central London (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

Rolling Stone calls “Dunkirk” the greatest war movie ever. Director Christopher Nolan has
made a film that’s “stunning and stirring,” according to the review. Nolan was captivated by
the “Dunkirk spirit” that marked the massive and heroic World War II rescue that took place
from May 26 to June 4, 1940.

Dunkirk is said to have strengthened the British resolve to fight against Nazi Germany in the
face of overwhelming odds. But it did so only after an eloquent and charismatic speaker with
a love for words—prime minister Winston Churchill—reframed the event for the public.

At 3:40 p.m. on June 4, 1940, Churchill delivered an update to the House of Commons. A
radio announcer read the speech to the public that night (Churchill himself didn’t narrate an
audio recording until years later). The evacuation of Dunkirk, code-named Operation
Dynamo, ended with the astonishing rescue of 338,000 allied soldiers off the shore of a small
French village. The German army had overrun much of the country and the soldiers were
trapped. A flotilla of 900 British Navy ships and small boats manned by civilians carried the
soldiers across the English channel. They did this all under heavy German bombardment.

Was the retreat a defeat or a victory? Thirty thousand British soldiers had lost their lives or
were taken prisoner. France would surrender to Nazi Germany before the month was over.
Despite the losses, Churchill called the event “a miracle of deliverance.” Newspapers carried
the headline: “Miracle of Deliverance.”

Churchill’s words and style transformed Dunkirk into a symbol of British courage.

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In the speech, Churchill did not begin with the headline: 338,000 allied soldiers rescued.
Instead, he acknowledged that he expected “perhaps” 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers to be rescued.
He built up the suspense to show how much the odds were stacked against them. “The enemy
attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness,” Churchill said. The enemy “sowed
magnetic mines in the channel” and sent “repeated waves of hostile aircraft, more than a
hundred strong in one formation.” Under the “ceaseless hail of bombs,” the civilians on the
boats “never faltered.”

Although Churchill did not sugarcoat the grave situation facing Britain (the losses were
“enormous”), Churchill spoke as if Britain had already won the war. His words were short
and decisive. “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end,” Churchill said. Imagine if
Churchill had hedged his bet. Nobody would have been inspired if Churchill said, “We might
continue to wage war if we deem the conditions favorable.”

In the climatic final paragraph of the speech, Churchill leaves no room for discussion. His
words are optimistic, defiant, confident and decisive—exactly what people needed to hear.

“We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing
confidence and strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields
and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Churchill uses two powerful rhetorical devices in the paragraph: anaphora and vivid imagery.

Anaphora is the repetition of the same words or phrases in successive sentences. When
Churchill repeats “We shall fight…we shall fight…we shall fight,” each sentence adds to the
power of the moment. It’s almost impossible not to be moved. A member of parliament wrote
in his diary that many in the chamber had tears in their eyes.

Churchill’s speech also included vivid imagery. The British wouldn’t just fight…they would
fight “in the air…on the beaches…in the hills…in the streets.” Churchill once said that the
last lines of a speech should have a “rapid succession of waves of sound and vivid pictures.”
The brain doesn’t process abstractions very well. Churchill’s words were specific, tangible
and vivid.
Churchill was very young when he first understood the power of words to inspire. At the age
of 22, he wrote, “Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of
oratory. He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king.”

Dunkirk should be remembered so it can continue to inspire generations. It’s also important
to remember that inspiring leaders are always necessary to infuse the Dunkirk spirit into the
soul of their listeners.

Dunkirk
Synopsis: Evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, and France, who
were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk,
France, between May 26- June 04, 1940, during Battle of France in World War II.

Genre: Action, Drama, History

Actors: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Lee Armstrong
Production: Warner Bros. Pictures
Won 3 Oscars. Another 51 wins & 197 nominations.

IMDB:
8.0
Metacritic:
94
Rotten Tomatoes:
92%
Dunkirk is a 2017 war film written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts
the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II. Its ensemble cast includes Fionn Whitehead, Tom
Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan,
Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy. The film is a British-
American-French-Dutch co-production, and was distributed by Warner Bros.

Dunkirk portrays the evacuation from three perspectives: land, sea, and air. It has little
dialogue, as Nolan sought instead to create suspense from cinematography and music.
Filming began in May 2016 in Dunkirk and ended that September in Los Angeles, when post-
production began. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the film on IMAX 65 mm and
65 mm large-format film stock. Dunkirk has extensive practical effects, and employed
thousands of extras as well as historic boats from the evacuation, and period aeroplanes.

The film premiered on 13 July 2017 at Odeon Leicester Square in London, and was released
in the United Kingdom and the United States on 21 July in IMAX, 70 mm, and 35 mm film
formats. It is the highest-grossing World War II film, taking $527 million worldwide.
Dunkirk received praise for its screenplay, direction, musical score, and cinematography;
some critics called it Nolan's best work, and one of the greatest war films.

The film received eight nominations at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, winning for Best
Editing, eight at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, winning for Best Sound, and three at
the 75th Golden Globe Awards. At the 90th Academy Awards, it received eight nominations,
including Best Picture and Best Director (Nolan's first Oscar nomination for directing); it
went on to win for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing.

Dunkirk movie review: Christopher

Nolan’s epic one of the best war films ever
made. 5 stars
Dunkirk movie review: Christopher Nolan’s war movie is
an unrelenting, unstoppable force of nature, an existential
masterpiece powered by a terrific Hans Zimmer score.
Rating: 5/5.
movie reviews Updated: Jul 24, 2017 07:29 IST
Rohan Naahar
Hindustan Times

Dunkirk is an unstoppable, existential masterpiece.

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Dunkirk
Director - Christopher Nolan
Cast - Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Harry Styles, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth
Branagh
Rating - 5/5

The moments spent in anticipation immediately before a new Christopher Nolan movie are
often just as nerve-wracking as those spent watching the film.
An irresistible energy buzzes through your body as you collapse into your grimy seat – a
hypnotic mix of nervousness, fear, paranoia, and careful optimism.

This is a pilgrimage, after all. To some, Nolan is a god, and his temple’s walls, dark and
foreboding, seem to push in as the lights go down. Your senses, usually dulled by a mundane
existence, are heightened. You’ve never experienced anything like it.

The crowd’s hushed tones hit you in waves, and even the most distant whisper is deafening –
but it reassures as much as it startles. There are others like you. And like you, they’ve waited
years for this moment. You are not alone. And the electricity you’ve created – together – in
the cavernous place of worship, could power a small town.

I have experienced this sensation on four occasions, before four Christopher Nolan films, and
each of those experiences were, and remain to this day, some of the most special I’ve had
inside a movie theatre.

And yesterday, it happened again.

Dunkirk, a film about men, created by men, is a force of nature – an elemental beast of a
movie about finding the meaning of life surrounded by the meaninglessness of war. It is an
existential masterpiece set across three parallel plots destined to collide, which in turn are set
on three planes of existence – earth, air, and water. To us, these elements symbolise life, but
in Dunkirk, they might as well be harbingers of death, having suspended our characters in
their purgatory as they await judgment.
On the land, in the seaside French town of Dunkirk, 400,000 soldiers have been pushed by
‘the enemy’ – curiously, not once are the Nazis mentioned – towards the sea. They wait,
bombarded from behind, and up above, for deliverance. Before them lies a seemingly endless
expanse of blue – and home, England, is practically within sight, across the choppy waters of
the Channel. They go from boat to boat – some even conning their way onto the rickety
barges – desperate to get off the cursed beach, as torpedoes attack them from below, and
missiles rain like hellfire from the sky.

They’re in need of a miracle.

But help is on its way. Tom Hardy protects them from above, acting, like he did in The Dark
Knight Rises, through a mask, and only with his eyes. And his eyes are all he needs to convey
the (sometimes scarily suicidal) determination to save his countrymen, as he picks off one
Luftwaffe fighter after another – even as his wingmen perish, and his fuel gauge begs him to
stop.

Below him, on the water, a civilian Mark Rylance has commandeered a boat, one of the many
deployed by the Navy in an effort to aid the evacuation process. With his teenage son, and his
son’s eager friend in tow – but without a firm plan – he sails into war.
And with the precision of a watchmaker – time is an oft-repeated motif in the film – Nolan, a
master working at the peak of his powers, puts the pieces of this jigsaw together with some of
his most effortless editing since Inception. And like Inception, as layer after layer of
Dunkirk’s nesting doll structure is uncovered, and when the three stories finally converge
after almost two hours of merciless tension, the emotional release is pure ecstasy.

Often, in order to build this tension, the experimental work of genius that it is, Dunkirk
spends long stretches in silence. DP Hoyte van Hoytema’s IMAX camera, taking a break
from soaring across the skies, wrestling for space among thousands of men, and gazing
placidly at the sheer beauty of it all, brings the actors’ faces inches from its own. And these
fine performers – mostly young stars (Harry Styles included) – convey wordlessly the
torment raging in their characters’ minds.
But because of these periods of silence, and because of Nolan’s refusal to rely on words (or,
for that matter, a traditional structure) to tell his story, Hans Zimmer’s terrific score becomes
crucial, and slowly, emerges as a character in its own right. Like the film, it is unrelentingly
intense, stretched to breaking point as it conjures tension seemingly from nothing.

And such is Nolan’s power at commanding the attention of his audience, that you find
yourself overlooking basic flaws. There isn’t a single character in this film that is properly
fleshed out, and it fails miserably at the Bechdel Test. But never have these glaring missteps
mattered less.

Do you remember what Bruce Wayne said at the end of The Dark Knight Rises? Moments
before flying into certain death, he looked at Commissioner Gordon, and growled, “A hero
can be anyone.”
And this is the sentiment that Nolan has carried into Dunkirk. These characters aren’t meant
to have elaborate backstories or complicated motivations. They’re meant to represent an
ideal. They’re meant to embody our bravery and our empathy and our kindness.

A hero can be anyone, from a middle-aged sailor who just wants to teach his son to do the
right thing, to a decorated commander who refuses to leave until every last man who serves
under him – or even if he doesn’t – has been saved.

Dunkirk is one of the greatest war movies ever made – it’s certainly the tightest, most
unwaveringly propulsive film of Christopher Nolan’s career. But it’s also as meditative as
The Thin Red Line, as brutal as Saving Private Ryan, and sometimes, even as surreal as
Apocalypse Now.

Now, let’s talk about what makes Dunkirk one of the best-reviewed films of the year and a
major award-season contender…

As a World War II buff, I’ve read countless books, articles, and accounts from the war. The
story of Dunkirk is among the most amazing and inspiring, as well as gut-wrenching &
heartbreaking. It’s at once a tale of impending doom and painful defeat, but also of restored
hope and renewed faith that even in our darkest moments we can rise above seeming defeat
and glimpse the possibility of righteous victory.

Christopher Nolan’s film is a breathless, awe-inspiring depiction of war by land, sea, and air.
We are introduced to multiple characters who serve as our surrogates to guide us across each
battlefield, and in every case we feel emotionally and viscerally a part of the experience as
much as is human possible by observing such things from afar. Except “afar” isn’t the right
word, because Nolan puts us inside the moments as much if not more than any other war film
to date.
Tom Glynn-Carney and Cillian Murphy star in Warner's "Dunkirk"Source: Warner Bros

Recall what it felt like the first time you experienced those opening moments of Saving
Private Ryan, but then imagine an even more immersive experience (as hard as that might be
to imagine) with even more sense of realism. Then imagine if, during that sequence, you’d
already become acquainted with most of the soldiers you’re watching fight and suffer and
die. And then imagine it all continues throughout the entirety of the film. That might give you
a sense of the impact Dunkirk has, particularly when viewed in what I can guarantee is the
most potent and relevant use of IMAX and 70mm in modern cinema.

Note: I beg you, if you see Dunkirk — which you should — be sure to seek out one of the
premium formats so you get the full immersive impact, and so that all of the work Nolan and
his crew put into the smallest details and biggest jaw-dropping moments is given the due it
deserves. I give you my word, you won’t regret it.
The story structure is nonlinear here, which of course is no surprise since Nolan favors
allowing his stories to jump and change and evolve in front of our eyes as is necessary to tell
the stories the way they need to be told. Dunkirk is easily his most irreverently structured
picture since Memento, perhaps more so since that film is consistent in its application of
backward narrative. In this new film, each part of the war transpires at a different rate — on
land (one week), at sea (one day), and in the air (one hour) — so we see the same moments
from various perspectives, playing out multiple times and not always with clear indications of
just what’s coming or where we are in the narrative. But this isn’t a problem or a complaint,
it’s part of the perfection of Dunkirk that makes it Nolan’s masterpiece.

Civilian boats and ships help evacuate UK soldiers in Warner's "Dunkirk"Source: Warner Bros

There is a structure and method to the narrative that defies the apparent confusion on the
surface, and also a confusion of the narrative that defies the simple explanation of its
structure on the surface. In the small moments, we slowly glimpse the shape of the monster
and perceive its larger truth, just as the larger truths — defeat, approaching death, evacuation,
fear and defeatism giving way to hope and victory — become personalized and personified in
each random soldier’s place amid the turmoil and chaos.

The cast simply couldn’t be any better, so honest and resonant are their portrayals. It’s one of
the rarest of rare elements in successful storytelling on the big screen where the power of
performances are imbued with urgency and fundamental truth arising from every single other
aspect of the filmmaking — the cinematography, the visual effects work grounded in
practical stunts and action, the other actors, the camera angles, the score, the editing — and
where literally every single other aspect is heightened to peak significance through the
performances in each scene. Nolan always gets wonderful work from his casts and crews, but
I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this level of flawless synchronicity from start to finish in his
films before Dunkirk.

Nolan cares about all of his films, and only makes movies he wants to make, stories he feels
are worthy of his time and attention. But in Dunkirk, he reaches beyond merely the artistic
drive into something more. We can sense a human need, that he is compelled to tell this story,
he has no choice. Dunkirk represents something important and necessary that we must hear,
that Nolan must say. When a filmmaker and storyteller loses themselves in a project to
become a vessel through which a great truth is spoken by a moment in human history that
demands to be heard, it is an amazing thing to behold. Today, the memory of Dunkirk and all
of its lessons rise up to confront us so that we understand what happened and why it is vitally
important right now, today and every day from now on, to remember and to honor that
history.
Kenneth Branagh oversees the evacuation of soldiers in Warner's "Dunkirk"Source: Warner Bros

In purely cinematic terms, Dunkirk is one of the few perfect films of the 21st Century.
There’s not a wrong note, an off shot, a less than ideal edit, an unearned emotion. It seems
destined to run the gamut of Oscar nominations, and should be a front runner for many of
them. In particular, Christopher Nolan will surely — finally — earn a Best Director nod, and
the film itself is a shoo-in for a Best Picture nomination. It will also get tapped for Best
Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay, as well as possibly
multiple acting nominations in the same categories.

It’s impossible to explain how incredible the visuals are in Dunkirk. Not just the genius of the
visual effects — a genius apparently attained by literally doing whatever the scene requires,
be it the sinking of a massive Naval vessel with all hands aboard, or aerial dogfights requiring
mounting an IMAX camera on a war-era plane and flying over the ocean and over the actual
beaches where the evacuation took place.

Harrowing scene from Warner's "Dunkirk"Source: Warner Bros

It feels obscene to talk about the beauty and glory of sequences and shots depicting such
brutal, terrible warfare during an unspeakable time. Yet even in the pit of this Hell there were
moments of grace, as well as tragedies that wrench your heart from your chest to remind you
there can be no mercy without suffering necessitating and defining the nature of that mercy.

So it is that Dunkirk is beautiful and magnificent and inspiring. We never look away, even in
the worst moments, because we understand with all of our hearts that we must bear witness to
them if we are to understand how and why humanity can be inspired to rise above our worst
moments and our worst nature to become something better, to turn defeat into victory and
vanquish darkness that seeks to consume us. In Dunkirk, each moment of success can give
way to another moment of loss, but those successes build until we have faith more success
will come even in the face of another loss.

How often can we say a film makes us feel so deeply, lets us see our world so clearly, and
lets us glimpse a sense of something divinely greater than ourselves?

My mother grew up during World War II. She was literally bombed by Hitler and the Nazis,
repeatedly. She fled one home after another as a child, she ran screaming from a school as
Nazis gunned down other children and teachers and parents running through the field around
her. The trauma of those experiences lived inside her for the rest of her life, haunting her
sleep and returning to her again and again even now as she faces the twilight days of her long
life.
Soldiers stare in horror at a Germany dive bomber in Warner's "Dunkirk"Source: Warner Bros

I recently visited my British family for the first time in my own life, I traveled around
England and saw some of the places my mother remembers from those nightmarish years.
And I traveled through Europe to see some of the sites from the war, to see the names of the
victims of Nazism embedded into the side of buildings and on little plaques on the streets of
cities all over the continent.

So the war and its horrors are part of my family’s history, and it remains alive in the
memories handed down from my mother and her family. Dunkirk speaks to those memories
and honors them in ways many — indeed, most — other films never have for me personally.
We once fought a World War to trample Nazism, authoritarianism, fascism, and evil into the
dirt and dust of history. Dunkirk is a stark reminder of what can happen if we forget those
lessons, but also a heartfelt and ultimately uplifting reminder of what we can achieve when
we remember them.

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we
shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 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…
—Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, June 4 1940

5 Inspiring Spiritual Lessons From the Real Ordeal at Dunkirk

By Jeff Sanders August 9, 2017

chat 9 comments

YouTube screenshot.
I saw the movie "Dunkirk" (2017) the other day. I thought it was excellent. And I would
heartily recommend it to anyone, especially parents with their adolescent or teenage kids
(since they will probably never be taught real history in school). It's not gory like "Saving
Private Ryan" (1998) or laced with profanity (I might have heard one vulgar word, but it's
hard to tell with those thick English accents sometimes).

Anyway, the movie spurred me to do some of my own research about this event in 1940.
(Although I remember reading about Dunkirk when I was a kid, I was stunned to find out
through casual conversations that almost NO ONE my age or younger had ever heard of it
before the movie came out! So, the absence of teaching real history has been going on for
some time now apparently.)

The British/French disaster in France and evacuation at Dunkirk reminded me of several key
spiritual lessons I have gleaned from the Bible:

1. Unpreparedness leads to disaster.

The Allies thought they were safe behind their defenses. The French had built a string of
impressive fortifications (called the Maginot Line) along their border with Germany.
Supposedly, there was no way for the Germans to penetrate those steel and concrete bunkers,
trenches, and minefields.

However, the Maginot Line ended with the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. Why fortify that
area? The forests are way too thick for German armor to pass through. And the Dutch thought
that if the Germans attacked them, they could just flood their fields, and the German tanks
could not maneuver.

They all underestimated the enemy. The British, French, Belgians, and Dutch were all lulled
to sleep. They all believed that fighting a defensive war--merely sitting behind fixed
fortifications forever—would prevent the Nazis from hurting them.

Christians certainly underestimate the spiritual enemy today. The Bible says that Satan is "a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He is on the prowl. At times
Christians almost convince themselves that they are not in a real spiritual war every single
day. You don't win too many battles by ignoring the enemy or playing defense all the time
and thinking he will never attack.

In the same passage the Apostle Peter tells Christians to "be sober, be vigilant" (v8) and to
"resist him, steadfast in the faith" (v9). The Apostle Paul tells the Ephesians to strap on the
whole armor of God every day, and to go out and do battle, not just sit around and wait for
things to happen (Ephesians 6:14-17).

Christians are to be soldiers, trained and hardened for battle, not sitting around (2 Timothy
2:3-4). We are commissioned to take the fight to the enemy, as God's royal ambassadors (2
Corinthians 5:17-21) and set captives free with the liberating message of the Gospel. We can't
do that if we are constantly on the defense.

The Germans invaded Holland so quickly (from the air with paratroopers as well as with
armored divisions on the ground), that the Dutch were overwhelmed in days. The British and
French woodenly followed their plan from the last war and marched north to meet the
Germans in Belgium. Then the trap was sprung.

A second German army plowed through the "impenetrable" Ardennes Forest, completely by-
passing the French fixed fortifications of the Maginot Line. Within days the German armies
in the north and the south had surrounded and cut off almost half a million Allied troops in a
little area around the city of Dunkirk.

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2. The "experts" can be wrong.

The "experts" said evacuation of the entire army was impossible. The Royal Navy told
Churchill that at the most they could evacuate maybe 30,000 British troops. The French had a
navy too, but doubted they could get many of their men out of that pocket. I don't criticize the
two navies; they were working with what they had.

One of the few "piers" accessible to the navy was "the mole" — a jetty reaching out into the
English channel -- but only a few hundred men at a time could be on it (watch the movie,
which was filmed at the actual site of Dunkirk's beaches!). The large warships could not run
themselves up on the shore; they would be beached and could never get away.

The Allies also did not have landing craft (like the Higgins boats of D-Day fame a few years
later). Five hundred thousand men had their back to the sea, and the armies of an evil dictator
were bearing down on them. How do they escape to freedom, only a few dozen miles away?

Be careful about the "nay sayers" in life. When I face tough times or long odds, I like to think
about what God says in Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God." He is God and I am
not, and what seems impossible to us is not difficult to Him. I think of the many stories of
God's faithfulness and how He brought His people out of bondage, out of exile, out from
tyranny.

I think of the Apostle Paul in his writings telling us that "all things were together for good, to
those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
The God of the Bible is never defeated, and His people should never stay discouraged. "With
God, all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).

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3. Prayer does indeed work.

On Friday, May 24, 1940, His Majesty King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer.
He asked that all his subjects throughout the commonwealth beseech heaven for divine
assistance two days later on Sunday, May 26. Here, courtesy of YouTube, is the recording of
the King's request for all his people to pray for deliverance. You can hear his appeal
specifically at the 9:40 mark:

A funny thing happened on May 24. Not only did King George ask for a National Day of
Prayer, believing that heaven would indeed hear, but on that very same day, the tyrant Adolf
Hitler issued his famous "stop order" to all his generals. On May 24, he ordered his tanks and
infantry to stop attacking the Allies in Dunkirk.

I did not get this information from some Christian magazine. My sources for this are the
Time/Life book "Blitzkrieg" by Robert Wernick (1979) and "The Rise and Fall of the Third
Reich: A History of Nazi Germany" by William L. Shirer. Both books (and other secular
sources I have consulted) go into all sorts of theories why Hitler ordered his troops to stop
attacking, but the end result is that no one to this day knows for sure why he stopped when he
could have annihilated half a million Allied troops.

So, did Hitler issue the stop order right after the British king asked his people to pray? I don't
know exactly the time line, so I cannot answer that question. I do know that on May 26, the
churches and cathedrals of Great Britain were packed. The people were praying. And on that
day, the Royal Navy began "Operation Dynamo": the launching of every conceivable type of
ship or boat that could reach Dunkirk. I have also read that the seas were unusually calm at
this time for the "little navy." (By the way, some of the sailboats and paddle wheelers and
fishing boats you see in the movie were actually there at Dunkirk, 77 years ago!)

As a Christian I firmly believe that the God of heaven hears our sincere cries. He listens, and
He acts. The Bible tells us that God has directly intervened in human history, whether it is
with Moses leading the trapped Israelites through the Red Sea, or by sending the Lord Jesus
to rescue all who would believe in Him.

The miracle of Dunkirk (as it is called on p. 731 in Shirer's book) reminds me of Isaiah 65:24
("Before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear") and 1 John
5:14 ("Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to
His will, He hears us"). Indeed He does. Indeed He did during those dark days 77 years ago.

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4. The Lord uses the "little guys."

All in all, almost 900 ships and boats of every size and shape participated in operation
dynamo. It was not a pleasure cruise however. Almost 200 of the vessels never made it back.
As the movie depicts, the Germans were gunning for those rescue ships with cannon fire from
the shore, bombs from their Luftwaffe, and torpedoes from U-boats.

The Royal Navy commandeered many of the ships, but some were piloted by their owners.
They had to sail through areas loaded with German mines, and often had to run through a
gauntlet of fire and steel. Shirer on p. 736 says, "Where was the famed Luftwaffe? Part of the
time, as Hitler noted, it was grounded by bad weather."

They also had a difficult time hitting some of their targets near Dunkirk because of pillars of
smoke rising up from burning buildings and ammo dumps.

As "Blitzkrieg" notes, "inside Dunkirk everything seemed to be on fire. Yet Dunkirk's flames
also helped make the evacuation possible. By day the billowing clouds of smoke covered the
city, and many waves of dive bombers returned to their bases without attacking; they couldn't
find targets. By night the fires illuminated the harbor entrance and the few quays and
warehouses that had not been reduced to wreckage" (p153).
Interesting. They were helped by a cloudy pillar by day, and by a fiery pillar at night.
Hmmm.

Remember what the "experts" said? They could rescue maybe 30,000? Well, from May 26 to
June 3 the Royal Navy, the French Navy, and the "little navy" rescued 338,000 British troops.
They also rescued 140,000 French, Belgian, and Dutch troops. Sadly, thousands could not be
rescued. Some 40,000 courageous French troops fought to the very last in order to give time
for their comrades to get away. They surrendered on June 4 to the Nazis.

God uses big warships and little tiny boats (the smallest boat, the "Tamzine," was only 15
feet long and could hold only 5 people!). He used Peter the fisherman and Ruth the outcast
foreigner. He used David the shepherd and Matthew the tax collector and Paul the Pharisee.
All He needs are people who are willing and able and He will pull off a miracle.

24 PG Movies to Guide Your Kids Through 7 Historical Time Periods

5. The immediate battle was not the final victory.

Dunkirk was not a victory, and it was not the end. Churchill said afterward that "wars are not
won by evacuation." Oftentimes, things get a lot worse before they get better. France
surrendered shortly thereafter, and the British had to endure the famous "Battle of Britain."
The British Army and thousands of French troops lived to fight another day, but the war was
not over until May of 1945. The Allies had to fight grueling, bitter warfare for years.

Also, remember that the way things are now, they will not be forever. If you were a neutral
third party in France in 1940, who would you say would win the war? "Everybody thinks the
Germans will win." But everybody was wrong.

Over three years later, the Germans were crushed at El Alamein and Stalingrad. Then there
was D-Day. Finally in 1945 the seemingly "invincible" Nazi war machine was ground into
the dust (thank God). God is the One who is ultimately in charge of history, and He has the
final say (read Psalm 2) and all the tyrants of the world will never defeat Him or His people.

LESSON #1: FIGHTING AGAINST HELPLESSNESS-- Dunkirk has a level of

scratching, clawing, and persevering for survival against insurmountable odds and
fears. Such initiatives are the reasons people take chances with their lives. Survival is not
fair and the moments of challenge and peril are nearly relentless.

LESSON #2: WHEN DELIVERANCE IS NEEDED-- England would have been crippled
and defenseless if those nearly half-million men were lost at Dunkirk. The successful
evacuation spurred a British rebound in the war, a moment not lost on Prime Minister
Winston Churchill in his famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech that followed. The
combined rescue efforts of civilian volunteers pulled off what many consider to be a military
miracle. Nolan labels it “deliverance” and he’s dead right.
LESSON #3: PUBLIC CITIZENS ARE AN ELEMENT OF HOPE DURING WAR--
The people of England rose to action in patriotic solidarity against adversity. After this
incident in history, the term "Dunkirk Spirit" was coined referring to “an attitude of being
very strong in a difficult situation and refusing to accept defeat.” Success became possible
because the national mindset was united, from the waiting soldiers on those beaches across
the sea to the public support waiting and then called to act from home.

The following are 19 Leadership Quotes And Lessons From Dunkirk. What is interesting
about this movie is few if any characters have names. The story is the main character. So
just enjoy the quotes and lessons.

1. Death Is A Reality In War. Therefore, People Keep Doing Their Jobs. – In the
initial scenes the Germans are bombing the beaches of Dunkirk where 40,000 allied
soldiers are located. After the planes would pass and the soldiers would duck for
cover, they would then stand back up and continue their duties while new casualties
were lying all around them.
2. Smart Leaders Understand The Value Of Partnership – “He’s on me.” “I’m on
him.” – British fighter pilots.
3. It Takes Everyone To Survive Times Of Desperation – In the English version of
the Alamo, hundreds of average citizens sailed their private vessels to Dunkirk to
rescue soldiers and get them safely back to England.
4. Successful People Take Responsibilities Seriously And Do Their Jobs – My
favorite character was a private citizen called Mr. Dawson, played brilliantly by Mark
Rylance. He told his son prior to launching his vessel, “There is no hiding from this
son. We have a job to do.”
5. Survival Is One Of Our Basic Instincts – After rescuing a soldier stranded at sea,
Dawson said, “He feels safer on deck. You would too if you’ve been bombed.”
6. Crisis Never Leaves You The Same – Dawson added, “He’s shell-shocked. He’s
not himself. He may never be himself again.”
7. Smart Leaders Always Create Options – Many of the soldiers on boats positioned
themselves with an escape route if bombed. This would allow them not to become
trapped below and drown.
8. Leaders Always Sit Down To A Banquet Of Consequences To Our Decisions –
Dawson said, “Men my age made this war. Why should we send in our children to
fight it?”
9. Passivity Is Not A Leadership Strategy – Dawson noted, “There won’t be a home if
we don’t get our men across the Channel.”
10. Leaders Are Forced To Make Hard Decisions During Times Of Scarcity –
Captain Winnant wondering where the land and air support was said, “The fight is
here.” To which Commander Bolton said, “They save their destroyers and planes for
Britain.”
11. Great Leaders Help People Find Their Way Home – Commander Bolton said,
“You can practically see it from here…Home”
12. A Leader’s Greatest Ability Is Their Availability – Dawson’s son said, “We have
to pick up survivors.” To which he survived, “To do that we must survive ourselves.”
13. Ordinary People Have The Capacity To Do Extraordinary Things – Ordinary
people used their personal vessels to rescue approximately 10,000 soldiers.
14. Everyone Has Dignity, Even In Death – When a teenage boy was killed by accident,
a soldier needing a place to sit on a boat said, “He’s dead.” His friend replied, “Make
sure to be careful with him.”
15. Leaders Never Confuse Activity With Accomplishment – After arriving back in
England, a soldier told someone handing him a blanket, “All we did was survive.” He
replied, “That’s enough.”
16. Leaders Should Arrive First And Leave Last – The last people off the island of
Dunkirk were the army and naval officers.
17. Great Leaders Pay A Price Others Are Unwilling To Pay – After saving countless
lives and taking down dozens of planes, a British fighter pilot, played by Tom Hardy,
landed his plane in enemy territory after running out of fuel. He was subsequently
captured by the enemy.
18. “Wars are not won by evacuation” – Winston Churchill
19. “I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if
the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves
once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive
the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is
what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government –
every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire
and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend
to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of
their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States
have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of
Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in
France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air, 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.” – Churchill speech to end the movie