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However, the British Royal Navy with the assistance of many merchant navy and civilian craft evacuated most of the Anglo-French army, in a plan codenamed Operation Dynamo. The British hailed this as a major success and Churchill described it as the ‘miracle of Dunkirk.’<ref>Taylor, A.J.P. and S.L. Mayer, Eds. A History of World War Two. London: Octopus Books, 1974, p. 57</ref> It was widely believed that if the British has not been able to evacuate their forces from Dunkirk that the country would have been defenseless in the face of Germany and could have lost the war. The evacuation of Dunkirk was a major boost for British morale at a time when they had effectively to fight the Nazis and their allies on their own. It is widely believed that Hitler did not order a final and all-out attack on Dunkirk because he was overconfident. He ordered his Panzers to halt their advance.<ref>Frieser, Karl-Heinz. The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. 2005), p. 145</ref> He probably did not think that the British could evacuate their forces from Dunkirk. There has been some controversy regarding the accuracy of the movie. This article will discuss how historically accurate is Christopher Nolan’s movie.

[[File:British_gunner_beach_dunkirk.png|left|350px|thumbnail|British gunner taking cover at Dunkirk Beach 1940]]

The movie begins when the British surrounded in an enclave around the port of Dunkirk. It shows them under constant aerial attack from the Luftwaffe and losing many men to the German air force. The movie does not accurately show the reality of the Luftwaffe attacks on the British units assembled at Dunkirk. In the film, many of the attacks are carried out by Meschershmidt ME fighters, who are shown strafing the beaches at Dunkirk. This is true but the movie does not show that many Stukas’ were also involved in the German air raids and these dive-bombers wreaked havoc on the British units in May 1940.<ref>Freiser, p 117</ref> This is a glaring omission. Moreover, the movie fails to show that while the Luftwaffe was very effective against troops and vehicles they were very ineffective against the British ships. In the movie, the Luftwaffe are showing as sinking many Royal Navy and other vessels. This was not the case as the German air force was not able to sink many of British ships and this was to be one of the primary Operation Dynamo succeeded.