text:
Marc-Vivien Foé

Marc-Vivien Foé (1 May 1975 – 26 June 2003) was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a defensive midfielder for both club and country.

Having initially played for Canon Yaoundé, Foé went on to play professionally in Ligue 1 and the Premier League with Lens, West Ham United, Lyon and Manchester City. On 26 June 2003, Foé died suddenly during an international match for Cameroon, an event which shocked the football community worldwide. The death was later ruled to be due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He was capped 62 times by his nation and had scored 8 goals.

He was posthumously decorated with the Commander of the National Order of Valour and had his shirt numbers 23 and 17 retired by Manchester City and Lens, respectively.

Club career
Foé was born on 1 May 1975 in Yaoundé. He started as a junior with Elite Two side Union de Garoua. Moving to Canon Yaoundé, one of the biggest clubs in Cameroon, he won the Cameroonian Cup in 1993.

After turning down Auxerre for a trainee position, he signed for another French club, RC Lens of Ligue 1. His debut on 13 August 1994 was a 2–1 win against Montpellier. In five seasons at Lens, he won the 1998 French league title.

In 1998, he was targeted by Manchester United, but Lens turned down a £3 million offer for him. Further negotiations between the clubs were curtailed abruptly after he broke a leg at Cameroon's pre-World Cup training camp, and subsequently missed the whole of the 1998 World Cup.

Shortly after his recovery, he moved to English Premier League club West Ham United, for a club record fee of £4.2 million in January 1999. He played 38 league matches for West Ham, scoring one goal against Sheffield Wednesday. He also scored a goal in West Ham's 3–1 win against NK Osijek in the UEFA Cup.

In May 2000, he moved back to France, joining Lyon on a £6 million transfer. He missed much of the season after he developed symptoms of malaria. After recovery, he won the Coupe de la Ligue in 2001, and the Division 1 league title a year later.

Foé then returned to the English Premier League, loaned to Manchester City in the 2002–03 season for £550,000. His debut on the opening day of the season was a 3–0 loss to Leeds United. Foé was a first team regular for Kevin Keegan's team, starting 38 of 41 matches. His first goal for the club came against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on 9 December 2002, and he scored five more goals in the next month. His second goal in a 3–0 victory against Sunderland on 21 April 2003 was the club's final goal at their old Maine Road stadium.

International career
Foé began representing Cameroon at under-20s when he was called up to the squad of 18 players for the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia, under the management of Jean Manga-Onguéné. He played in all of their three group stage matches, scoring one goal in a 3–2 defeat to Colombia in their second match on 8 March 1993, as Cameroon were eventually eliminated from the competition after finishing third. Foé later made his senior debut against Mexico on 22 September 1993 at the Memorial Coliseum, a match which Cameroon lost 1–0.

The following year, he was included in the Cameroon squad for the 1994 World Cup, starting all three of their matches. Team members had been in various financial and disciplinary disputes with the Cameroon Football Association, and the squad was a shadow of the one which had famously reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1990. Cameroon mustered just one point from three matches, and finished with an embarrassing 6–1 defeat to Russia. However, Foé's consistently strong performances as a defensive midfielder (including a goal assist) prompted interest from European clubs.

He was in the Cameroon squad in the 2002 World Cup. As in 1994, he played in all of Cameroon's matches. Though the team performed better than in 1994, they were again eliminated at the group stage, having beaten Saudi Arabia, drawn with Ireland and lost to Germany.

Death
Foé was part of the Cameroon squad for the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup. He played in wins against Brazil and Turkey and was rested for the match against the United States, with Cameroon having already qualified.

On 26 June 2003, Cameroon faced Colombia in the semi-final, held at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France. In the 72nd minute of the match Foé collapsed in the centre circle with no other players near him. After attempts to resuscitate him on the pitch, he was stretchered off the field, where he received mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and oxygen. Medics spent 45 minutes attempting to restart his heart and although he was still alive upon arrival at the stadium's medical centre, he died shortly afterwards. A first autopsy did not determine an exact cause of death, but a second autopsy concluded that Foé's death was heart-related as it discovered evidence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a hereditary condition known to increase the risk of sudden death during physical exercise.

Foé's widow Marie-Louise stated that he had been ill with gastric problems and dysentery before his final match, but he was adamant to play in his adopted hometown of Lyon. Cameroon manager Winfried Schäfer wanted to substitute him minutes before his collapse, observing that the player seemed fatigued, but he signalled that he wanted to continue.

Personal life
Foé was a practising Roman Catholic and donated money to charity regularly. He held Cameroonian and French nationalities.

Tributes
Foé's death caused a profound shock. Numerous tributes to his joyous personality and infectious humour were expressed in the media. French national team player Thierry Henry and other French players pointed to the sky in tribute to Foé after Henry had opened the scoring against Turkey in their Confederations Cup semi-final that evening. It was suggested that the Confederations Cup and the Stade Gerland could have been renamed after him, and Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan announced that the club would no longer use the number 23 shirt Foé wore during his successful season there. At Manchester City's former ground, Maine Road, there is a small memorial to him in the stadium's memorial garden, and on the walls of the players' tunnel are plaques paid for by supporters, with their names, dubbed the Walk of Pride. The first plaque on the wall is for Marc and reads "Marc Vivien Foé – 1975–2003". His first club, Lens, gave his name to an avenue near the Stade Félix Bollaert. Foé was given a state funeral in Cameroon.

Similar to Manchester City, Lens decided to withdraw the number 17 shirt that Foé wore for five years. Lyon also decided to withdraw the number 17 shirt that Foé also wore a year before during the time which he played at the Stade de Gerland with the Lyon team. People in Lyon were shocked as he had received a warm welcome on his return to the stadium. However, when fellow Cameroonian Jean II Makoun was transferred to Lyon, Makoun took up the number 17 shirt, explaining that he wore the number: "In memory of Marc, for me and for the whole Cameroon, this will be for something."

Prior to the kick-off of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup final between the United States and Brazil, his son, then fourteen years old, gave a brief speech in memory of his father.

International goals

 * Cameroon score listed first, score column indicates score after each Foé goal.

Honours

 * Canon Yaoundé
 * Cameroonian Cup: 1993

 * Lens
 * Division 1: 1997–98

 * West Ham United
 * UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1999

Individual
 * Lyon
 * Division 1: 2001–02
 * Coupe de la Ligue: 2000–01
 * Cameroon
 * Africa Cup of Nations: 2000, 2002
 * FIFA Confederations Cup Bronze Ball: 2003

title: Marc-Vivien Foé


text:
Talk:Transportation on Jarvis Island

Eh.... Why is this a separate article instead of something folded into the Jarvis Island article? There's like 3 lines here!

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Transportation on Jarvis Island


text:
USS Adirondack

USS Adirondack may refer to:

 * USS Adirondack (1862), was a gunboat during the American Civil War that sank off the Bahamas
 * USS Adirondack (YT-44), was an iron-hulled screw tugboat originally known as Underwriter.
 * USS Adirondack (ID-1270), was commissioned into the Navy in 1917 and used as a floating barracks until 1919.
 * USS Adirondack (AGC-15), was an amphibious force flagship in service from 1945 to 1955.

title: USS Adirondack


text:
Dunkirk evacuation

The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France.

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France and the British Empire declared war on Germany and imposed an economic blockade. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to help defend France. After the Phoney War of October 1939 to April 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and France on 10 May 1940. Three panzer corps attacked through the Ardennes and drove northwest to the English Channel. By 21 May, German forces had trapped the BEF, the remains of the Belgian forces, and three French field armies along the northern coast of France. BEF commander General Viscount Gort immediately saw evacuation across the Channel as the best course of action, and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest good port.

Late on 23 May, the halt order was issued by Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group A. Adolf Hitler approved this order the next day, and had the German High Command send confirmation to the front. Attacking the trapped BEF, French, and Belgian armies was left to the Luftwaffe until the order was rescinded on 26 May. This gave Allied forces time to construct defensive works and pull back large numbers of troops to fight the Battle of Dunkirk. From 28 to 31 May, in the siege of Lille, the remaining 40,000 men of the French First Army fought a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armoured divisions.

On the first day, only 7,669 Allied soldiers were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, 338,226 had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 vessels. Many troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole onto 39 British Royal Navy destroyers, four Royal Canadian Navy destroyers, at least three French Navy destroyers, and a variety of civilian merchant ships. Others had to wade out from the beaches, waiting for hours in shoulder-deep water. Some were ferried to the larger ships by what became known as the Little Ships of Dunkirk, a flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, yachts, and lifeboats called into service from Britain. The BEF lost 68,000 soldiers during the French campaign and had to abandon nearly all of its tanks, vehicles, and equipment. In his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech on 4 June to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the event "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. He hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance". Churchill also reminded the country that "we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations."

Background
In September 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, the United Kingdom sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to aid in the defence of France, landing at Cherbourg, Nantes, and Saint-Nazaire. By May 1940 the force consisted of ten divisions in three corps under the command of General John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort. Working with the BEF were the Belgian Army and the French First, Seventh, and Ninth Armies.

During the 1930s, the French had constructed the Maginot Line, a series of fortifications along their border with Germany. This line had been designed to deter a German invasion across the Franco-German border and funnel an attack into Belgium, which could then be met by the best divisions of the French Army. Thus, any future war would take place outside of French territory, avoiding a repeat of the First World War. The area immediately to the north of the Maginot Line was covered by the heavily wooded Ardennes region, which French General Philippe Pétain declared to be "impenetrable" as long as "special provisions" were taken. He believed that any enemy force emerging from the forest would be vulnerable to a pincer attack and destroyed. The French commander-in-chief, Maurice Gamelin, also believed the area to be of a limited threat, noting that it "never favoured large operations". With this in mind, the area was left lightly defended.

The initial plan for the German invasion of France called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium, avoiding the Maginot Line. Erich von Manstein, then Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A, prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH; German High Command) via his superior, Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt. Manstein's plan suggested that panzer divisions should attack through the Ardennes, then establish bridgeheads on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The Germans would thus cut off the Allied armies in Belgium. This part of the plan later became known as the Sichelschnitt ("sickle cut"). Adolf Hitler approved a modified version of Manstein's ideas, today known as the Manstein Plan, after meeting with him on 17 February.

On 10 May, Germany invaded Belgium and the Netherlands. Army Group B, under Generaloberst Fedor von Bock, attacked into Belgium, while the three panzer corps of Army Group A under Rundstedt swung around to the south and drove for the Channel. The BEF advanced from the Belgian border to positions along the River Dyle within Belgium, where they fought elements of Army Group B starting on 10 May. They were ordered to begin a fighting withdrawal to the Scheldt River on 14 May when the Belgian and French positions on their flanks failed to hold. During a visit to Paris on 17 May, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was astonished to learn from Gamelin that the French had committed all their troops to the ongoing engagements and had no strategic reserves. On 19 May, Gort met with French General Gaston Billotte, commander of the French First Army and overall coordinator of the Allied forces. Billotte revealed that the French had no troops between the Germans and the sea. Gort immediately saw that evacuation across the Channel was the best course of action, and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest location with good port facilities. Surrounded by marshes, Dunkirk boasted old fortifications and the longest sand beach in Europe, where large groups could assemble. On 20 May, on Churchill's suggestion, the Admiralty began arranging for all available small vessels to be made ready to proceed to France. After continued engagements and a failed Allied attempt on 21 May at Arras to cut through the German spearhead, the BEF was trapped, along with the remains of the Belgian forces and the three French armies, in an area along the coast of northern France and Belgium.

Prelude
Without informing the French, the British began planning on 20 May for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF. This planning was headed by Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay at the naval headquarters below Dover Castle, from which he briefed Churchill as it was under way. Ships began gathering at Dover for the evacuation. On 20 May, the BEF sent Brigadier Gerald Whitfield to Dunkirk to start evacuating unnecessary personnel. Overwhelmed by what he later described as "a somewhat alarming movement towards Dunkirk by both officers and men", due to a shortage of food and water, he had to send many along without thoroughly checking their credentials. Even officers ordered to stay behind to aid the evacuation disappeared onto the boats.

On 22 May, Churchill ordered the BEF to attack southward in coordination with the French First Army under General Georges Blanchard to reconnect with the remainder of the French forces. This proposed action was dubbed the Weygand Plan after General Maxime Weygand, appointed Supreme Commander after Gamelin's dismissal on 18 May. On 25 May, Gort had to abandon any hope of achieving this objective and withdrew on his own initiative, along with Blanchard's forces, behind the Lys Canal, part of a canal system that reached the sea at Gravelines. Sluice gates had already been opened all along the canal to flood the system and create a barrier (the Canal Line) against the German advance.

Battle of Dunkirk
By 24 May, the Germans had captured the port of Boulogne and surrounded Calais. The engineers of the 2nd Panzer Division under Generalmajor Rudolf Veiel built five bridges over the Canal Line and only one British battalion barred the way to Dunkirk. On 23 May, at the suggestion of Fourth Army commander Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge, Rundstedt had ordered the panzer units to halt, concerned about the vulnerability of his flanks and the question of supply to his forward troops. He was also concerned that the marshy ground around Dunkirk would prove unsuitable for tanks and he wished to conserve them for later operations (in some units, tank losses were 30–50 per cent). Hitler was also apprehensive, and on a visit to Army Group A headquarters on 24 May, he endorsed the order.

Air Marshal Hermann Göring urged Hitler to let the Luftwaffe (aided by Army Group B) finish off the British, to the consternation of General Franz Halder, who noted in his diary that the Luftwaffe was dependent upon the weather and aircrews were worn out after two weeks of battle. Rundstedt issued another order, which was sent uncoded. It was picked up by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Y service intelligence network at 12:42: "By order of the Fuhrer ... attack north-west of Arras is to be limited to the general line Lens–Bethune–Aire–St Omer–Gravelines. The Canal will not be crossed." Later that day, Hitler issued Directive 13, which called for the Luftwaffe to defeat the trapped Allied forces and stop their escape. At 15:30 on 26 May, Hitler ordered the panzer groups to continue their advance, but most units took another 16 hours to attack. Some accounts quote Hitler as saying he deliberately allowed the British to escape. The delay gave the Allies time to prepare defences vital for the evacuation and prevented the Germans from stopping the Allied retreat from Lille.

The halt order has been the subject of much discussion by historians. Guderian considered the failure to order a timely assault on Dunkirk to be one of the major German mistakes on the Western Front. Rundstedt called it "one of the great turning points of the war", and Manstein described it as "one of Hitler's most critical mistakes". B. H. Liddell Hart interviewed many of the generals after the war and put together a picture of Hitler's strategic thinking on the matter. Hitler believed that once Britain's troops left continental Europe, they would never return.

26–27 May
The retreat was undertaken amid chaotic conditions, with abandoned vehicles blocking the roads and a flood of refugees heading in the opposite direction. Due to wartime censorship and the desire to keep up British morale, the full extent of the unfolding disaster at Dunkirk was not initially publicised. A special service attended by King George VI was held in Westminster Abbey on 26 May, which was declared a national day of prayer. The Archbishop of Canterbury led prayers "for our soldiers in dire peril in France". Similar prayers were offered in synagogues and churches throughout the UK that day, confirming to the public their suspicion of the desperate plight of the troops. Just before 19:00 on 26 May, Churchill ordered Dynamo to begin, by which time 28,000 men had already departed. Initial plans called for the recovery of 45,000 men from the BEF within two days, at which time German troops were expected to block further evacuation. Only 25,000 men escaped during this period, including 7,669 on the first day.

On 27 May, the first full day of the evacuation, one cruiser, eight destroyers, and 26 other craft were active. Admiralty officers combed nearby boatyards for small craft that could ferry personnel from the beaches out to larger craft in the harbour, as well as larger vessels that could load from the docks. An emergency call was put out for additional help, and by 31 May nearly four hundred small craft were voluntarily and enthusiastically taking part in the effort.

The same day, the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Dunkirk, both the town and the dock installations. As the water supply was knocked out, the resulting fires could not be extinguished. An estimated one thousand civilians were killed, one-third of the remaining population of the town. RAF squadrons were ordered to provide air supremacy for the Royal Navy during evacuation. Their efforts shifted to covering Dunkirk and the English Channel, protecting the evacuation fleet. The Luftwaffe was met by 16 squadrons of the RAF, who claimed 38 kills on 27 May while losing 14 aircraft. Many more RAF fighters sustained damage and were subsequently written off. On the German side, Kampfgeschwader 2 (KG 2) and KG 3 suffered the heaviest casualties. German losses amounted to 23 Dornier Do 17s. KG 1 and KG 4 bombed the beach and harbour and KG 54 sank the 8,000-ton steamer Aden. Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers sank the troopship Cote d' Azur. The Luftwaffe engaged with 300 bombers which were protected by 550 fighter sorties and attacked Dunkirk in twelve raids. They dropped 15,000 high explosive and 30,000 incendiary bombs, destroying the oil tanks and wrecking the harbour. No. 11 Group RAF flew 22 patrols with 287 aircraft this day, in formations of up to 20 aircraft.

Altogether, over 3,500 sorties were flown in support of Operation Dynamo. The RAF continued to inflict a heavy toll on the German bombers throughout the week. Soldiers being bombed and strafed while awaiting transport were for the most part unaware of the efforts of the RAF to protect them, as most of the dogfights took place far from the beaches. As a result, many British soldiers bitterly accused the airmen of doing nothing to help, reportedly leading to some army troops accosting and insulting RAF personnel once they returned to England.

On 25 and 26 May, the Luftwaffe focused their attention on Allied pockets holding out at Calais, Lille, and Amiens, and did not attack Dunkirk. Calais, held by the BEF, surrendered on 26 May. Remnants of the French First Army, surrounded at Lille, fought off seven German divisions, several of them armoured, until 31 May, when the remaining 35,000 soldiers were forced to surrender after running out of food and ammunition. The Germans accorded the honours of war to the defenders of Lille in recognition of their bravery.

28 May – 4 June
The Belgian Army surrendered on 28 May, leaving a large gap to the east of Dunkirk. Several British divisions were rushed in to cover that side. The Luftwaffe flew fewer sorties over Dunkirk on 28 May, switching their attention to the Belgian ports of Ostend and Nieuwpoort. The weather over Dunkirk was not conducive to dive or low-level bombing. The RAF flew 11 patrols and 321 sorties, claiming 23 destroyed for the loss of 13 aircraft. On 28 May, 17,804 soldiers arrived at British ports.

On 29 May, 47,310 British troops were rescued as the Luftwaffe's Ju 87s exacted a heavy toll on shipping. The British destroyer HMS Grenade (H86) was sunk and the FRENCH DESTROYER Mistral was crippled, while her sister ships, each laden with 500 men, were damaged by near misses. British destroyers HMS Jaguar (F34) and HMS Verity (D63) were badly damaged but escaped the harbour. Two trawlers disintegrated in the attack. Later, the passenger steamer SS Fenella (1936) sank with 600 men aboard at the pier but the men were able to get off. The paddle steamer HMS Crested Eagle suffered a direct hit, caught fire, and sank with severe casualties. The raiders also destroyed the two rail-owned ships, the SS Lorina (1918) and the SS Normannia (1911). Of the five major German attacks, just two were contested by RAF fighters; the British lost 16 fighters in nine patrols. German losses amounted to 11 Ju 87s destroyed or damaged.

On 30 May, Churchill received word that all British divisions were now behind the defensive lines, along with more than half of the French First Army. By this time, the perimeter ran along a series of canals about 7 mi from the coast, in marshy country not suitable for tanks. With the docks in the harbour rendered unusable by German air attacks, senior naval officer Captain (later Admiral) William Tennant initially ordered men to be evacuated from the beaches. When this proved too slow, he re-routed the evacuees to two long stone and concrete breakwaters, called the east and west moles, as well as the beaches. The moles were not designed to dock ships, but despite this, the majority of troops rescued from Dunkirk were taken off this way. Almost 200,000 troops embarked on ships from the east mole (which stretched nearly a mile out to sea) over the next week. James Campbell Clouston, pier master on the east mole, organised and regulated the flow of men along the mole into the waiting ships. Once more, low clouds kept Luftwaffe activity to a minimum. Nine RAF patrols were mounted, with no German formation encountered. The following day, the Luftwaffe sank one transport and damaged 12 others for 17 losses; the British claimed 38 kills, which is disputed. The RAF and Fleet Air Arm lost 28 aircraft.

The next day, an additional 53,823 men were embarked, including the first French soldiers. Lord Gort and 68,014 men were evacuated on 31 May, leaving Major-General Harold Alexander in command of the rearguard. A further 64,429 Allied soldiers departed on 1 June, before the increasing air attacks prevented further daylight evacuation. The British rearguard of 4,000 men left on the night of 2–3 June. An additional 75,000 French troops were retrieved over the nights of 2–4 June, before the operation finally ended. The remainder of the rearguard, 40,000 French troops, surrendered on 4 June.

Of the total 338,226 soldiers, several hundred were unarmed Indian mule handlers on detachment from the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, forming four of the six units of Force K-6 transport. Cypriot muleteers were also present. Three units were successfully evacuated and one captured. Also present at Dunkirk were a small number of French Senegalese soldiers and Moroccans.

Evacuation routes
Three routes were allocated to the evacuating vessels. The shortest was Route Z, a distance of 39 nmi, but it entailed hugging the French coast and thus ships using it were subject to bombardment from on-shore batteries, particularly in daylight hours. Route X, although the safest from shore batteries, travelled through a particularly heavily mined portion of the Channel. Ships on this route travelled 55 nmi north out of Dunkirk, proceeded through the Ruytingen Pass, and headed towards the North Goodwin Lightship before heading south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover. The route was safest from surface attacks, but the nearby minefields and sandbanks meant it could not be used at night. The longest of the three was Route Y, a distance of 87 nmi; using this route increased the sailing time to four hours, double the time required for Route Z. This route followed the French coast as far as Bray-Dunes, then turned north-east until reaching the Kwinte Buoy. Here, after making an approximately 135-degree turn, the ships sailed west to the North Goodwin Lightship and headed south around the Goodwin Sands to Dover. Ships on Route Y were the most likely to be attacked by German surface vessels, submarines, and the Luftwaffe.

"You knew this was the chance to get home and you kept praying, please God, let us go, get us out, get us out of this mess back to England. To see that ship that came in to pick me and my brother up, it was a most fantastic sight. We saw dog fights up in the air, hoping nothing would happen to us and we saw one or two terrible sights. Then somebody said, there's Dover, that was when we saw the White Cliffs, the atmosphere was terrific. From hell to heaven was how the feeling was, you felt like a miracle had happened."

Ships
The Royal Navy provided the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta (D82), 39 destroyers, and many other craft. The Merchant Navy supplied passenger ferries, hospital ships, and other vessels. Britain's Belgian, Dutch, Canadian, Polish, and French allies provided vessels as well. Admiral Ramsay arranged for around a thousand copies to be made of the required charts, had buoys laid around the Goodwin Sands and down to Dunkirk, and organised the flow of shipping. Larger ships such as destroyers were able to carry about 900 men per trip. The soldiers mostly travelled on the upper decks for fear of being trapped below if the ship sank. After the loss on 29 May of 19 British and French navy ships plus three of the larger requisitioned vessels, the Admiralty withdrew their eight best destroyers for the future defence of the country.

Little ships
A wide variety of small vessels from all over the south of England were pressed into service to aid in the Dunkirk evacuation. They included speedboats, Thames vessels, car ferries, pleasure craft, and many other types of small craft. The most useful proved to be the motor lifeboats, which had a reasonably good capacity and speed. Some boats were requisitioned without the owner's knowledge or consent. Agents of the Ministry of Shipping, accompanied by a naval officer, scoured the Thames for likely vessels, had them checked for seaworthiness, and took them downriver to Sheerness, where naval crews were to be placed aboard. Due to shortages of personnel, many small craft crossed the Channel with civilian crews.

The first of the "little ships" arrived at Dunkirk on 28 May. The wide sand beaches meant that large vessels could not get anywhere near the shore, and even small craft had to stop about 100 yd from the waterline and wait for the soldiers to wade out. In many cases, personnel would abandon their boat upon reaching a larger ship, and subsequent evacuees had to wait for boats to drift ashore with the tide before they could make use of them. In most areas on the beaches, soldiers queued up with their units and patiently awaited their turn to leave. But at times, panicky soldiers had to be warned off at gunpoint when they attempted to rush to the boats out of turn. In addition to ferrying out on boats, soldiers at De Panne and Bray-Dunes constructed improvised jetties by driving rows of abandoned vehicles onto the beach at low tide, anchoring them with sandbags, and connecting them with wooden walkways.

Analysis
Before the operation was completed, the prognosis had been gloomy, with Churchill warning the House of Commons on 28 May to expect "hard and heavy tidings". Subsequently, Churchill referred to the outcome as a miracle, and the British press presented the evacuation as a "disaster turned to triumph" so successfully that Churchill had to remind the country in a speech to the House of Commons on 4 June that "we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations." Andrew Roberts comments that the confusion over the Dunkirk evacuation is illustrated by two of the best books on it being called Strange Defeat and Strange Victory.

The 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was cut off south of the Somme, by the German "race to the sea", in addition to the 1st Armoured Division and a host of logistical and labour troops. Some of the latter had been formed into the improvised Beauman Division. At the end of May, further elements of two divisions began deploying to France with the hope of establishing a Second BEF. The majority of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was forced to surrender on 12 June. However, almost 192,000 Allied personnel, including 144,000 British, were evacuated through various French ports from 15 to 25 June under the codename Operation Aerial. Remaining British forces under the French Tenth Army as Norman Force retreated towards Cherbourg. The Germans marched into Paris on 14 June and France surrendered eight days later.

The more than 100,000 French troops evacuated from Dunkirk were quickly and efficiently shuttled to camps in various parts of south-western England, where they were temporarily lodged before being repatriated. British ships ferried French troops to Brest, Cherbourg, and other ports in Normandy and Brittany, although only about half of the repatriated troops were redeployed against the Germans before the surrender of France. For many French soldiers, the Dunkirk evacuation represented only a few weeks' delay before being killed or captured by the German army after their return to France. Of the French soldiers evacuated from France in June 1940, about 3,000 joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French army in Britain.

In France, the unilateral British decision to evacuate through Dunkirk rather than counter-attack to the south, and the perceived preference of the Royal Navy for evacuating British forces at the expense of the French, led to some bitter resentment. According to Churchill, French Admiral François Darlan originally ordered that the British forces should receive preference, but on 31 May, he intervened at a meeting in Paris to order that the evacuation should proceed on equal terms and that the British would form the rearguard. In fact, the 35,000 men who finally surrendered after covering the final evacuations were mostly French soldiers of the 2nd Light Mechanized and the 68th Infantry Divisions. Their resistance allowed the evacuation effort to be extended to 4 June, on which date another 26,175 Frenchmen were transported to England.

The evacuation was presented to the German public as an overwhelming and decisive German victory. On 5 June 1940, Hitler stated, "Dunkirk has fallen! 40,000 French and English troops are all that remains of the formerly great armies. Immeasurable quantities of materiel have been captured. The greatest battle in the history of the world has come to an end." Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German armed forces high command) announced the event as "the greatest annihilation battle of all time".

Casualties
During the entire campaign, from 10 May until the armistice with France on 22 June, the BEF suffered 68,000 casualties. This included 3,500 killed and 13,053 wounded. Most heavy equipment had to be abandoned during the various evacuations, resulting in the loss of 2,472 pieces of artillery, 20,000 motorcycles, nearly 65,000 other vehicles, 416000 LT of stores, more than 75000 LT of ammunition, and 162000 LT of fuel. Almost all of the 445 British tanks despatched to France were abandoned.

Six British and three French destroyers were sunk, along with nine other major vessels. In addition, 19 destroyers were damaged. Over 200 British and Allied sea craft were sunk, with a similar number damaged. The Royal Navy's most significant losses in the operation were six destroyers:
 * HMS Grafton (H89), sunk by GS U-62 (1939) on 29 May
 * HMS Grenade (H86), sunk by air attack at Dunkirk on 29 May
 * HMS Wakeful (H88), sunk by a torpedo from the E-boat S-30 on 29 May
 * HMS Basilisk (H11), HMS Havant (H32), and HMS Keith (D06), sunk by air attack off the beaches on 1 June

The French Navy lost three destroyers:
 * FRENCH DESTROYER Bourrasque, mined off Nieuport on 30 May
 * FRENCH DESTROYER Siroco, sunk by the E-boats S-23 and S-26 on 31 May
 * Le Foudroyant, sunk by air attack off the beaches on 1 June

The RAF lost 145 aircraft, of which at least 42 were Spitfires, while the Luftwaffe lost 156 aircraft in operations during the nine days of Operation Dynamo, including 35 destroyed by Royal Navy ships (plus 21 damaged) during the six days from 27 May to 1 June.

For every seven soldiers who escaped through Dunkirk, one man became a prisoner of war. The majority of these prisoners were sent on forced marches into Germany. Prisoners reported brutal treatment by their guards, including beatings, starvation, and murder. Another complaint was that German guards kicked over buckets of water that had been left at the roadside by French civilians, for the marching prisoners to drink.

Many of the prisoners were marched to the city of Trier, with the march taking as long as 20 days. Others were marched to the river Scheldt and were sent by barge to the Ruhr. The prisoners were then sent by rail to prisoner of war camps in Germany. The majority (those below the rank of corporal) then worked in German industry and agriculture for the remainder of the war.

Those of the BEF who died in the fighting of 1940, or as a prisoner of war following capture during this campaign, and have no known grave are commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial.

Dunkirk Jack

The St George's Cross defaced with the arms of Dunkirk is the warranted house flag of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. It is known as the Dunkirk Jack. The flag may be flown from the jack staff only by civilian vessels that took part in the Dunkirk rescue operation.

Films

 * Dunkirk (1958)
 * Weekend at Dunkirk (1964)
 * Atonement (2007)
 * Dunkirk (2017)
 * Darkest Hour (2017)

Television

 * Dunkirk (2004)

Books

 * The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk, a novella by Paul Gallico

title: Dunkirk evacuation


text:
CB

CB and variants may refer to:

Places

 * CB postcode area, British post code for eastern England served by the Cambridge postal sorting office
 * Cambodia (LOC MARC code, obsolete FIPS Pub 10-4 country code and obsolete NATO digram CB)
 * Cape Breton (disambiguation)
 * Centura București, a ring road of Bucharest, Romania
 * Colegio Bolivar, an American school in Cali, Colombia
 * Colwyn Bay, Wales
 * Province of Campobasso, Italy
 * ČB – České Budějovice, Czech Republic

People

 * Chris Brown (born 1989), American R&B singer
 * Chris Bosh (born 1984), American basketball player
 * Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1906–1908, widely referred to by his surname initials
 * Chauncey the Bear, a imaginary friend in 2024 film Imaginary

Brands and enterprises

 * Carte Bancaire, a bank card brand
 * Christianssands Bryggeri, a Norwegian brewery
 * ScotAirways (IATA airline code CB)

Business and financial terms

 * Capacity building, the process by which individuals and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills and knowledge needed to undertake their tasks
 * Certification body
 * Chargeback, a reversal of a banking or credit card transaction
 * Convertible bond, a type of bond that can convert into a specified number of shares

Computing and telecommunications

 * Cell Broadcast, in GSM mobile networks
 * Citizens band radio (CB radio), a system of short-distance radio communications
 * Closed beta, a software development stage or testing process

Other uses in science and technology

 * Cannabinoids, a group of substances that bind to animal cannabinoid receptors
 * Circuit breaker, an automatic electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by overcurrent
 * Columbium (Cb), an obsolete name for the element niobium
 * Conduction band of the electrons in a (semiconducting) solid
 * Confirmation bias
 * Cumulonimbus cloud (Cb), a type of cloud that is tall, dense, and involved in thunderstorms and other intense weather

Sea vessels

 * CB-class midget submarine, a group of midget submarines built for the Italian Navy during World War II
 * Block coefficient (Cb), a parameter describing the shape of a ship's hull
 * A retired US Navy hull classification symbol: Large cruiser (CB)

Positions

 * Centre-back, a defensive position in association football
 * Cornerback, a position in American football

Teams

 * Chicago Bears, a team in the National Football League
 * Chicago Bulls, a team in the National Basketball Association
 * Cleveland Browns, a team in the National Football League
 * Cincinnati Bengals, a team in the National Football League
 * Chicago Blackhawks, a team in the National Hockey League

Titles

 * Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the chief judge of the Court of Exchequer, an abolished English court
 * Companion of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a title conferred to British and Commonwealth citizens

Other uses

 * All pages with titles beginning with C. B.
 * 2020 Singapore circuit breaker measures, commonly abbreviated as CB, a stay-at-home order implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore
 * CB, dominical letter for a leap year starting on Friday
 * Casus belli, a Latin expression meaning reason for war
 * Construction Battalion (CB or "Seabee"), a United States Navy unit responsible for any type of construction be it general or combat on land or under water.
 * Curveball, a music festival hosted by the band Phish
 * Cone Beam (especially CBCT; Cone beam computed tomography)
 * Cumulative Bulletin, an annual compilation of the Internal Revenue Bulletin

title: CB


text:
Operation Cycle

Operation Cycle is the name of the evacuation of Allied troops from Le Havre, in the Pays de Caux of Upper Normandy from 10 to 13 June 1940, towards the end of the Battle of France, during the Second World War. The operation was preceded by the better known rescue of 338,226 British and French soldiers from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo (26 May – 4 June). On 20 May, the Germans had captured Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme and cut off the main Allied armies in the north. South of the river, the Allies improvised defences and made local counter-attacks to dislodge the Germans from bridgeheads on the south bank and re-capture river crossings, for an advance northwards to regain contact with the armies in northern France and Flanders.

The 1st Armoured Division arrived in France from 15 May, without artillery and less some divisional units that had been diverted to Calais. The division joined the large number of lines-of-communication troops south of the Somme, many of whom were hurriedly organised into the Beauman Division and other improvised units, despite a lack of training and weapons. French troops were sent into the area, as Général d'armée Maxime Weygand attempted to build up a defence in depth on the south bank of the Somme and make bigger attacks to eliminate the German bridgeheads. From 27 May to 4 June, about half of the German bridgehead south of Abbeville was recaptured by Franco-British troops; the Allies were reinforced by infantry divisions and the 4e Division cuirassée (4e DCr, Colonel Charles De Gaulle) but lost many of their tanks and the Germans much of their infantry, some units running back over the river Somme.

When Fall Rot (Case Red), the final German offensive, began on 5 June, the IX Corps of the French Tenth Army (including the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (Major-General Victor Fortune) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) after it arrived from the Saar on 28 May), was pushed back to the Bresle River. On 9 June, German tanks entered Rouen on the Seine, cutting off the IX Corps from the X Corps to the east and from the Seine to the south. The French and British commanders in the pocket decided to make for Le Havre and Fortune detached Arkforce, the equivalent of two brigades, to guard the routes back to the port. During the night of 9/10 June, the remainder of the Highland Division and the French divisions of IX Corps prepared to continue the retreat but found that the 7th Panzer Division (Generalmajor Erwin Rommel) had advanced from Rouen through Yvetot to Cany and Veulettes-sur-Mer on the Durdent river.

With an Allied withdrawal to Le Havre cut off, the Highlanders and the French retreated to St Valery-en-Caux, where from 10 to 11 June, 2,137 British and 1,184 French soldiers were rescued by the Navy. The remainder, including over 6,000 Highlanders, were taken prisoner on 12 June. At Le Havre, from 10 to 13 June, 11,059 British troops from Arkforce, other British units in the port and Allied forces were evacuated; attempts by the Franco-British to prepare a national redoubt in Brittany came to nothing. Operation Cycle was followed by Operation Aerial from 14 to 25 June, in which another 191,870 soldiers were embarked from Cherbourg, St. Malo and other Atlantic and Mediterranean ports, until the Armistice of 22 June 1940.

Battle of France
On 10 May 1940, the Germans began Fall Gelb an offensive against France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Within a few days, Army Group A (Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt) broke through the French Ninth Army (General André Corap) in the centre of the French front near Sedan and drove westwards down the Somme river valley, led by Panzergruppe Kleist made up of the XIX Armeekorps under Generalleutnant Heinz Guderian and the XLI Armee Korps under Generalleutnant Georg-Hans Reinhardt. On 20 May, the Germans captured Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme River, cutting off the Allied troops in Northern France and Belgium. The Battle of Arras, a Franco-British counter-attack on 21 May, led the Germans to continue to attack north towards the channel ports, rather than advance southwards over the Somme. Apprehension about another Franco-British counter-attack led to the Arras halt order being issued by the German higher commanders on 21 May. The neighbouring XV Corps (General Hermann Hoth) was held back in reserve and a division of the XLI Korps was moved eastwards, when the corps was only 50 km from Dunkirk.

British lines-of-communication
Allied forces north of the Somme were cut off by the German advance to St. Omer and Boulogne on the night of 22/23 May, which isolated the BEF from its supply entrepôts at Cherbourg in the Cotentin peninsula, Brittany and Nantes. The Pays de Caux, the coastal area between the Somme and the Seine, was known as the Northern District (Acting Brigadier Archibald Beauman) on the BEF lines-of-communication, with the Dieppe and Rouen districts as sub-areas. Dieppe was the main medical base of the BEF and Le Havre the principal supply and ordnance source. From St. Saëns to Buchy, north-east of Rouen, lay the main BEF ammunition depot and its infantry, machine-gun and base depots were at Rouen, Évreux and L'Epinay. A main railway line linking the bases and connecting them with bases further west in Normandy and with the BEF in the north, ran through Rouen, Abbeville and Amiens. Beauman was responsible for base security and guarding 13 airfields being built for the RAF, with troops drawn from the Royal Engineers, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Royal Corps of Signals and older garrison troops.

Below the Seine in the Southern District, were three Territorial divisions and the 4th Border Regiment, 4th Buffs and the 1st/5th Sherwood Forester lines-of-communication battalions, which were moved into the Northern District on 17 May as a precaution. Rail movements between these bases and the Somme quickly became difficult, due to congestion and German bombing, the trains from the north mainly carrying Belgian and French troops and the roads filling with retreating troops and refugees. Beauman lost contact with the BEF GHQ and was also unable to discover if Allied troops were going to dig in on the Somme or further south. On 18 May, Major-General Philip de Fonblanque, commanding the lines-of-communication troops, ordered Beauman to prepare defences in the Northern District. Beauforce was improvised from the 2nd/6th East Surrey of the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division, 4th Buffs, four machine-gun platoons and the 212th Army Troops Company RE.

Vicforce (Colonel C. E. Vickary) took over five provisional battalions created from reinforcement troops in infantry and general base depots, which held plenty of men but few arms and little equipment. Beauforce was sent to Boulogne on 20 May by road but the Germans had already cut off the port and it returned to the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division near Abbeville. When German troops captured Amiens on 20 May and then began patrolling south of the river, their appearance caused panic and alarmist rumours, in the absence of reliable information. Beauman ordered the digging of a defence line along the Andelle and Béthune rivers, the most effective tank obstacles south of the Bresle river, to protect Dieppe and Rouen against an attack from the east. Bridges were prepared for demolition and obstacles placed on the approaches.

Battle of Abbeville
On 20 May, the 2nd Panzer Division advanced 90 km to Abbeville on the English Channel, overran the 25th Infantry Brigade of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and captured the town at 8:30 p.m. Only a few British survivors managed to retreat to the south bank of the Somme. At 2:00 a.m. on 21 May, the III Battalion, Rifle Regiment 2 reached the coast, west of Noyelles-sur-Mer. The 1st Armoured Division (Major-General Roger Evans) had arrived in France from 15 May without artillery, short of an armoured regiment and the infantry of the Support Group, which had been diverted to Calais. From 4 June to 4 July the Franco-British forces south of the Abbeville bridgehead, held by the German 2nd Panzer Division, then the 57th Infantry Division, recaptured about half of the area; the Allied forces lost many of their tanks and the Germans much of their infantry, some units running back over the River Somme. On 5 June, the German 4th Army attacked out of the remains of their bridgeheads south of the Somme and the Franco-British divisions opposite, drastically depleted by their counter-attacks of the previous four weeks, were pushed back to the Bresle with many casualties.

Allied defensive preparations
The French armies and the "2nd BEF" were operating on interior lines and were closer to their bases and supplies. About 112,000 French troops from Dunkirk had returned to France via the ports of Normandy and Brittany and the 100,000 British troops in the area had been reinforced by about 60,000 fighting troops from England. The French had also managed to replace many of their tank and other armoured vehicle losses for the 1e and 2e DCr (heavy armoured divisions) and the 4e DCr had its losses replaced and French morale experienced something of a revival by the end of May.

Most French soldier replacements had not experienced the débâcle in the north and officers returned from Dunkirk had gained tactical experience against German mobile units and discovered that tank-for-tank, French vehicles were superior to their German equivalents, having thicker armour and better guns; the French artillery had also performed well. From 23–28 May, the Seventh Army and the Tenth Army (General Robert Altmayer) were rebuilt and Weygand adapted to German tactics with defence in depth and delaying tactics, to inflict maximum attrition on German units. Villages, towns and cities were fortified for all-round defence, to serve as hedgehogs with the new infantry, armoured and half-mechanised divisions held back, ready to counter-attack and relieve surrounded units, which were to hold out at all costs.

German offensive preparations
On 21 May, Colonel General Franz Halder, the Chief of the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) General Staff, submitted to Hitler Fall Rot (Case Red), a campaign plan for the final defeat of France, which after amendment was adopted on 31 May. On 5 June, Army Group A was to attack either side of Paris towards the Seine and the main attack by Army Group B (Colonel General Fedor von Bock) was to begin the main attack east of Paris on 9 June towards Rheims and then after about a week, Army Group C (Colonel General Wilhelm von Leeb) was to attack through the Maginot Line and the Upper Rhine. The three army groups would then converge on the Plateau de Langres south-east of Paris and on the rear of the Maginot Line. Army Group B had 36 infantry, one cavalry, four motorised infantry, six panzer divisions and two motorised infantry brigades. Army Group A had 39 infantry, two motorised infantry and four panzer divisions. The 4th Army, 6th Army and 9th Army were controlled by Army Group B and the 2nd Army, 12th Army and 16th Army by Army Group A; the 18th Army (General Georg von Küchler) with four divisions, was to remain at Dunkirk. Army Group C had 24 infantry divisions and 22 infantry divisions were held in OKH reserve. Seven divisions were left in eastern Germany and seven garrisoned Norway.

The motorised infantry and panzer divisions were concentrated into two groups of two corps each, Panzergruppe Guderian in Army Group A and Panzergruppe Kleist (General Ewald von Kleist) in Army Group B along with the XV Corps. The plan was based on the traditional concept of Vernichtungsgedanke (annihilation theory) in which Bewegungskrieg (battles of manoeuvre) would lead to the encirclement and destruction of the opposing armies. The panzer groups were not to be used in independent operations but subordinated to the armies, despite having the same size and importance. Panzergruppe Guderian came under the 12th Army (Colonel General Wilhelm List), Panzergruppe Kleist the 6th Army (Colonel General Walter von Reichenau) and XV Corps under the 4th Army (Colonel General Günther von Kluge). Despite protests from Guderian, List planned the attack over the Aisne as an infantry operation, with the panzer divisions held back to exploit the breakthrough. Extensive redeployments were necessary and Panzergruppe Guderian moved 200 mi to its start line, after travelling 300 mi during the drive to Dunkirk, the troops beginning to show great tiredness and the vehicles wear and tear. The Luftwaffe made strategic attacks from 1–4 June (towards the end of the Dunkirk evacuation), against the Parisian aircraft industry and fuel dépôts around Marseilles, then resumed close support operations for the army for Fall Rot. (After the occupation of the capital on 14 June, Luftwaffe operations concentrated on the Channel Ports south of the Somme and the Atlantic ports, towards which the BEF was retreating.)

4th Army plan
On the German right flank, against the French Tenth Army, the 4th Army of Army Group B was to attack with the 5th Panzer Division, 7th Panzer Division, the 57th Infantry Division, 31st Infantry Division, 12th Infantry Division, 32nd Infantry Division, 27th Infantry Division, 46th Infantry Division and the 6th Infantry Division and the 2nd Motorised Division, the 11th Motorised Brigade and the 1st Cavalry Division. Advancing on a line from Abbeville to Amiens, with a flank guard on the left facing Paris, the main force was to make for the lower Seine, quickly to capture Le Havre and bridgeheads at Rouen, Les Andelys and Vernon. An advance beyond the Seine to the south or south-west was to wait on events.

5 June
On 5 June, Fall Rot (Case Red), a German offensive to complete the defeat of France began and Army Group A attacked either side of Paris towards the Seine. The 4th Army offensive on the Somme began at 4:00 a.m. opposite the 51st (Highland) Division at St. Valery sur Somme. German infantry moved forward against Saigneville, Mons, Catigny, Pendé, Tilloy and Sallenelle held by the 7th and 8th battalions, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Argyll), as other troops passed between them, the villages being too far apart for mutual support. Saigneville, Mons, Catigny, Pendé and Tilloy fell late in the afternoon and the 7th Argyll were surrounded at Franleu, by troops infiltrating between Mons and Arrest. The 4th Black Watch in reserve, were ordered forward to relieve Franleu but were stopped by German troops at Feuquières and an Argyll company sent forward was surrounded at the edge of Franleu. By dark, the remnants of the 154th Infantry Brigade had been pushed back to a line from Woincourt to Eu.

On the right, the 153rd Infantry Brigade was bombed by Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers along with the mortar and artillery-fire used on the rest of the front. The German infantry pushed the battalion back to Tœufles, Zoteux and Frières, where British machine-gun and artillery fire stopped the advance. The French 31st (Alpine) Division was forced back parallel to the British from Limeux to Limercourt and Béhen, with the 152nd Infantry Brigade on the right from Oisemont to the Blangy–Abbeville road. The 1st Lothian and Border Horse at Bray were attacked and fell back east of the village of Oisement. The Composite Regiment had several engagements and had tank losses before rallying at Beauchamps on the Bresle. The 51st Highland and 31st (Alpine) divisions had tried to hold a 40 mi front and were so depleted after the bridgehead attacks up to 4 June, that the 1st Black Watch had to hold a 2.5 mi front, in close country. The British troops held on until overwhelmed or retreated under the cover of their artillery, which also held on until the last moment before retiring.

The 51st (Highland) Division HQ requested air support from the South Component HQ at Boos but the three AASF fighter squadrons were down to 18 airworthy aircraft and lost another four during the morning. Big Luftwaffe attacks had been expected on the industrial town of Rouen, a rail and road centre and Anglo-French base of operations; 1 Squadron and French fighters intercepted a raid early in the morning and shot down several aircraft but the remainder got through and bombed Boos aerodrome and an army camp. Another raid in the evening was caught by 501 Squadron but managed to bomb the airfield and camp again, the main bridge, power station, railway and factories. Bombing by the AASF and Bomber Command took place further east and during the night, 103 aircraft attacked German communications in France and oil and transport targets in Germany.

6 June
During the night, Fortune wrote to Marshall-Cornwall, the War Office liaison officer at the Tenth Army HQ, asking for reinforcements and permission to retreat with the 31st (Alpine) Division to the Bresle but no more troops were left. Marshall-Cornwall prevailed upon Altmayer to agree to a retreat to the Bresle, where the 31st (Alpine) Division would hold from Senarpont to Gamaches and the 51st (Highland) Division from there to the sea, a front of 12.5 mi. On 6 June, the day passed with German attacks on Oisemont supported by artillery and bombing, that were repulsed by the 1st Lothian and the 2e Division Légère de Cavalerie (2nd DLC, Colonel Berniquet) in a costly defensive success. Attacks further away were repulsed by artillery and small arms fire, except at Beauchamps. Infiltration attempts around Eu and Ponts-et-Marais were only just repulsed by the Composite Regiment of the 1st Armoured Division.

The Composite Regiment moved on to Eu and counter-attacked the infiltrations there. Later in the day, the 40th Division moved up beyond the Bresle from Senarpont to Aumale to reinforce parties of Royal Engineers and an anti-tank battery. During the day, reports arrived that German tanks had broken through on the right, that turned out to be alarmist rumours but the 5th and 7th Panzer divisions had attacked towards Rouen and their leading elements had got beyond the Poix–Rouen road, with the 2nd Motorised Division following. The 6th Infantry Division was advancing on the German left and the 32nd Infantry Division on the German right was 10 mi away. The IX Corps position on the Bresle was vulnerable to being cut off in the Havre peninsula. A brigade group of the 52nd (Lowland) Division was due from England on 7 June and the War Office urged the French command to arrange a line of retreat south-east, away from the dead-end of Le Havre, towards the BEF lines of communication south of the Seine.

Weygand had forbidden a retirement, ordering the Bresle to be held come what may. Earlier, 12 Blenheims with air cover flew from England to attack German columns moving towards the Somme crossings and lost five aircraft. Later in the day, 24 Blenheims bombed bridges and roads from Abbeville to St. Valery-sur-Somme for no loss. Fighters of the AASF patrolled Rouen and during the evening flew sorties over the IX Corps area. In the afternoon, two fighter squadrons had flown from England to Boos airfield, refuelled and patrolled the battlefront but arrived after the German raids on Oisemont and Millebosc. Weygand also appealed for more fighters and the Air Ministry issued warning orders to several squadrons, as 67 Bomber Command and 17 AASF aircraft raided German communications and oil targets that night.

7 June
A Brigade of the Beauman Division, with about 3,000 men of the 4th Buffs, 1st/5th Sherwood Forester and 4th Border battalions, was sent to reinforce the 51st (Highland) Division (whose 152nd, 153rd and 154th Infantry brigades had suffered 80, 60 and 25 per cent casualties) and took over on the left; the remnants of the 152nd Infantry Brigade moved into reserve in the Haute forêt d'Eu. By 7 June, the 51st (Highland) Division had taken up the new position on the Bresle and was in contact with the 31st (Alpine) Division on the right, which reverted to French command. The river made a good defensive position, particularly at the mouth where the banks had been flooded, forming a good tank obstacle and the only vulnerable points were at Eu and Ponts de Marais. During the day, the 4th Border and a company of the 1st/5th Forester attacked the German pocket on the south bank but only managed to push back the Germans to the north-west end of the Haute forêt d'Eu. The 1st Lothian and the Composite Regiment were moved up as a precaution and for the rest of the day the Allied forces skirmished with the Germans opposite.

To the south-east, the situation continued to deteriorate and Fortune liaised with the 31st (Alpine) Division, to make sure that the limitations of the Support Group (Brigadier F. E. Morgan), 1st Armoured Division were understood. (The day before, the 1st Armoured Division had come under the command of Almayer at the Tenth Army HQ.) The Support Group was separated from the 51st (Highland) Division by the 31st (Alpine) Division, 40th Infantry Division, the 2e DLC and the 5e DLC. During 7 June, Evans met Marshall-Cornwall and Lieutenant-General Henry Pownall the former Chief of Staff of the BEF, who was over from England. It was known by then that the 5th Panzer Division had broken through the French from Grandvilliers and Formerie and overrun British troops south of the Aumale. Other parts of the Support Group on the Aumale–Serqueux front had defeated an attack but the panzers had then attacked south-west near Forges; the remains of the Support Group were withdrawn into the Basse Forêt d'Eu. The 5th and 7th Panzer divisions had already outflanked the Bresle line and the 1st Armoured Division units were ordered up to Gournay-en-Bray to make a flank attack on the German penetration. The division had 41 cruiser tanks and 31 light tanks in the 3rd Armoured Brigade, six light tanks of Queen's Bays and the 10th Royal Hussars mounted in lorries of the 2nd Armoured Brigade, after refitting since the May offensive against the German Somme bridgeheads.

During the evening, Général d'armée Maxime Weygand, arrived at the Tenth Army HQ and told the Franco-British officers that the Tenth Army was fighting the decisive battle of the war, that as there were no reserves and all depended on the 1st Armoured Division holding 10 mi of the Andelle line from Nolleval to Serqueux, as French formations counter-attacked from the south. Evans explained that it was a division in name only, its artillery, anti-tank guns and infantry having been detached and that the tanks were not suited to static defence and were already moving up for a counter-attack on the German flank. Weygand was unmoved, only giving permission for the division to retreat over the Seine if it was pushed back from the Andelle. Evans had to countermand the counter-attack, while some units were already engaging the Germans 5 mi north-west of Gournay. By dawn on 8 June, the panzers were close to Rouen and IX Corps on the Bresle was on the brink of being cut off.

Bresle
On the Bresle, German troops did little while they waited for the panzer divisions to envelop the southern flank of the IX Corps defence line. The 4th Border and 1st/5th Forester continued their attempts to expel the Germans from positions in the Haute forêt d'Eu but only managed to prevent the Germans from taking more ground and there was skirmishing around Beauchamps. At dawn, the German panzer divisions resumed their attack towards Rouen. By this time the 51st (Highland) Division and the reinforcement of A Brigade from the Beauman Division was holding the line of the Bresle from Gamaches to Eu under the command of the divisional headquarters. The 1st Armoured Division had been broken up as soon as it arrived in France and without the detachments to Calais had taken part in the Allied offensive against the German bridgeheads south of the Somme. Since then, a Composite Regiment from the 2nd Armoured Brigade had remained with the 51st (Highland) Division and was covering the Haute forêt d'Eu. The rest of the 2nd and 3rd Armoured brigades had been reduced by losses to improvised units and held part of the Andelle line from Nolleval to Serqueux and the remnants of the Support Group was in the Basse forêt d'Eu under the command of the 51st (Highland) Division. B and C brigades of the Beauman Division were defending the Béthune–Andelle line from the Seine to Dieppe.

Andelle
The panzer divisions attacked at Forges and Sigy-en-Bray, where French refugees and stragglers had been passing through, making it impossible to close the road blocks and a column of French tanks was allowed through, which turned out to be captured vehicles with German crews. The "French" tanks attacked the defences from the rear as the main German force attacked frontally, capturing Serqueux, losing it to a counter-attack and then regaining it. Sigy was bombarded and dive-bombed and the tanks of the 1st Armoured Division and the Beauman Division infantry were pushed back. Further north, Neufchatel was in flames and panzers reached Mathonville and pressed on towards the Neufchatel to L'Epinay and Rouen road. Earlier, the Composite Regiment in Haute forêt d'Eu had been ordered back to the 1st Armoured Division to guard the left flank of the defenders on the Andelle line and arrived at L'Epinay at 2:30 p.m. but before the regiment could take post, German panzers and troops arrived on the road from Serqueux, 12 mi away. For three hours the Composite Regiment resisted German attacks and was then pushed back.

The rest of the 5th Panzer Division had advanced towards Rouen and at 4:00 a.m. engaged Syme's Battalion at Isneauville, which had been dive-bombed earlier in the day. The battalion, that had been improvised from reinforcement drafts only a week previous, had laid dannert wire and planted land-mines and after artillery preparation, resisted for three hours, preventing the Germans from reaching Rouen and claimed many infantry casualties, twelve tanks knocked out, six paratroops, an aircraft and a field gun. The battalion then made a fighting withdrawal to the Seine. During the afternoon and night, the remnants of the 1st Armoured Division and the Beauman Division also retreated over the Seine, which left only the 51st (Highland) Division and part of the Support Group on the north side. Weygand ordered the IX Corps to retreat to Les Andelys and Rouen, which had already fallen. Ihler received the orders as the Tenth Army HQ was out of touch while moving closer to Paris and gave the divisional commanders a retirement programme in which Rouen was to be reached in four days, despite the German spearheads being only four hours from the city.

Seine
On 6 June Syme's Battalion had arrived comprising soldiers from the base reinforcement depot and the 2nd/4th King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (2nd/4th KOYLI) and 2nd/6th Duke of Wellington's (2nd/6th Duke's) battalions of the 46th Division, that had been recovering since the loss of Abbeville on 20 May, had taken up positions around Rouen, Syme's Battalion with four 2-pounder anti-tank guns and a machine-gun platoon around Isneauville, the 2nd/4th KOYLI on a bridge over the Seine and the 2nd/6th Duke's along the railway south of Boos. The Beauman Division had little artillery and its ill-equipped infantry was dispersed in about 50 mi of ground from the south-east of Rouen on the Seine to St. Vaast on the Béthune and in positions around Rouen. In some places they were close to parties of the 1st Armoured Division and at others with French troops all under separate command, with few means of liaison. Refugees and stragglers on the roads made it impossible to close roads or prevent infiltration and led Beauman to give a general order, that troops were to hold for as long as possible and that brigadiers were to use their discretion, as to when a retreat to the south of the Seine had become necessary. (During the afternoon and night, the last of the 1st Armoured Division and the Beauman Division retreated over the river.)

9 June
During the morning, German tanks entered Rouen, to find that French and British troops had left and blown the Seine bridges. IX Corps on the Bresle began to retire as the German armoured forces turned north. Fortune had divided the 51st (Highland) Division to leapfrog backwards; the 153rd Brigade and A Brigade were to retreat to a line from Envermeu to Belleville-sur-Mer as the 154th and 152nd Brigades assembled on the Béthune further back. The Royal Army Service Corps made double trips to move the troops but some took until mid-morning on 9 June, to reach the new positions. (Resistance at two of the Bresle crossings by D Company of the 4th Border and A Company of the 1st/5th Sherwood Forester, which did not receive the retreat order, may have slowed a German follow-up, the two companies holding on for another six days until on 13 June, they realised that hostilities north of the Seine had ended.) The survivors of the Support Group in the Basse forêt d'Eu joined the remains of the 2e DLC and 5e DLC in Forêt d'Eawy. The Tenth Army HQ has lost contact with IX Corps and the 51st (Highland) Division lost contact with everyone, until a dispatch rider arrived from Le Havre with a message from the British commander in Le Havre, that the Port admiral had reported that the Germans had reached Rouen. Fortune conferred with Ihler and both agreed to retreat to Le Havre.

On the night of 9/10 June, the rest of the 51st (Highland) Division blew the bridges over the Arques and the Eaulne, where the Germans promptly attacked. The 4th Seaforth and the 1st Black Watch managed to hold on, despite attacks at Arques la Bataille and Martigny, where the artillery repulsed several German advances. The panzer divisions had turned north from Rouen towards Dieppe and captured the Arkforce wireless lorry near Carny on the Durdent river at 11:00 a.m. The river was the next position the 51st Highland Division was to retire to after dark and a reconnaissance by the 1st Lothian found the Germans on the river crossings at Veulettes-sur-Mer close to the coast too. German tanks were reported 6 mi from divisional headquarters that afternoon and rear parties moving westwards preparatory to the retreat that night, ran into German troops. At 5:30 p.m. HMS Ambuscade (D38), part of the destroyer force that had been giving the division fire support for several days, was damaged by German artillery on the cliffs near St. Valery-en-Caux and HMS Boadicea (H65) was hit while embarking troops from the beach; IX Corps had been cut off from Le Havre.

St Valery-en-Caux
Admiral William James, the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth, had arrived at Le Havre on 10 June, ordered destroyers to reconnoitre the smaller ports to the east and learned of the damage to Ambuscade and Boadicea; James signalled to the Admiralty that he planned to lift a large number of men from the port and that it must be done that night, if at all. The retreat to the coast began after dark and the last troops left the Béthune at 11:00 p.m. without challenge. Fortune signalled to the War Office that there were two days' rations left and that evacuation from St Valery to the mouth of the Durdent would be necessary. Units were ordered to dump non-essential equipment and guns were reduced to 100 rounds each to make room on the RASC transport for the men. The night move was difficult as French troops, many horse-drawn, encroached on the British route and alarmist rumours spread.

Fortune and Ihler set up near Veules-les-Roses to direct troops and by the morning of 11 June, IX Corps had established defensive positions around St Valery. French transport continued to arrive at the perimeter and it was difficult in some places to recognise German troops following up, which inhibited defensive fire. That evening, the captain of Codrington was ordered to begin the evacuation and two hours later, Fortune signalled that it was probably now or never. Troops not needed to hold the perimeter moved down to the beaches and the harbour but no ships arrived, because thick fog prevented them from moving inshore. An armada of 67 merchant ships and 140 small craft had been assembled but few had wireless and the fog prevented visual signalling; only at Veules-les-Roses at the east end of the perimeter, were many soldiers rescued, under fire from German artillery, which damaged the destroyers HMS Bulldog (H91), Boadicea and Ambuscade. Near dawn, the troops at the harbour were ordered back into the town and at 7:30 a.m., Fortune signalled that it might still be possible to escape the next night, then discovered that the local French commander had negotiated a surrender.

Le Havre
On 9 June, the French port Admiral at Le Havre sent word to the 10th Army and the 51st Highland Division that the Germans had captured Rouen and were heading for the coast. Ihler, the IX Corps commander and Fortune, decided that the only hope of escape was through Le Havre and abandoned the plan to retire through Rouen. The port admiral requested enough ships from the Admiralty to remove 85,000 troops but this contradicted the plans given by Weygand for the IX Corps retirement and Dill hesitated, ignorant that delays in issuing the orders had made the retreat plan impossible. Karslake had also urged several times that the retirement be accelerated but had no authority to issue orders. Only after contacting the Howard-Vyse Military Mission at Weygand's headquarters, to report the request from the Le Havre port Admiral and then receiving a message during the night from Fortune, that the 51st (Highland) Division was participating in a retreat by IX Corps towards Le Havre, did Dill learn the true situation.

Fortune detached a force to guard Le Havre comprising the 154th Infantry Brigade, A Brigade of the Beauman Division, two artillery regiments and engineers, named Arkforce (Brigadier Stanley-Clarke) after the village of Arques-la-Bataille, where it was formed. Arkforce moved on the night of 9/10 June towards Fécamp, where most had passed through before the 7th Panzer Division arrived. A Brigade managed to force its way out but lost the wireless truck intended to keep contact with the 51st (Highland) Division. The possibility of holding a line from Fécamp to Lillebonne was discounted and Stanley-Clarke ordered Arkforce on to Le Havre. A Royal Navy demolition party had been in Le Havre since late May and the port was severely bombed by the Luftwaffe on 7 June; two days later, the Admiralty sent orders for an evacuation. Admiral William James, the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth sent a flotilla leader, HMS Codrington (D65) across the channel, accompanied by six British and two Canadian destroyers, smaller craft and many Dutch coasters (known as schuyts).

A hasty plan was made to block Dieppe harbour and on 10 June, HMS Vega (L41) (Captain G. A. Garnon-Williams) escorted three blockships to the port. Two were sunk in the approach channel but the third ship hit a mine just outside, which prevented it being sunk at the entrance to the inner harbour. (James had signalled that many IX Corps troops would probably be trapped against the sea near St. Valery, where he had assembled flotillas of smaller craft under the local Senior Naval Officer.) Beach parties landed at Le Havre to take control of the evacuation on 10 June and after a 24-hour postponement, the evacuation began on 11 June. The embarkation was hindered somewhat by the damage to the port caused by Luftwaffe bombing; the troopship SS Bruges (1920), was hit and beached, the electric power was also cut, rendering the cranes on the docks useless. Ramps were tried for vehicle loading but it was too slow. On 12 June, RAF fighters began patrolling the port and deterred more raids and an attempt was made to save the transport and equipment by diverting it over the Seine via the ferry crossings at Caudebec or the ships at Quillebeuf at the river mouth. The quartermaster of the 14th Royal Fusiliers succeeded in getting the transport away.

Evacuations
A total of 2,137 British and 1,184 French soldiers were lifted from Veules-les-Roses but the remainder, including over 6,000 men of the 51st (Highland) Division, were taken prisoner on 12 June by the 7th Panzer Division (General Erwin Rommel). The 7th Panzer Division continued its advance through Normandy and reached Cherbourg on 18 June. The greatest number of troops were removed from Le Havre on the night of 12/13 June and the evacuation was completed by dawn; of the 11,059 British troops evacuated, 9,000 men of A Brigade of the Beauman Division were taken to Cherbourg and the 154th Infantry Brigade sailed via Cherbourg to England.

Analysis
Army Group B had attacked either side of Paris with 47 divisions including the majority of the mobile units and for the first 48 hours, the French withstood the German attacks. The 4th Army captured bridgeheads over the Somme but the attack on the Aisne failed against the French defence in depth. At Amiens, the Germans were repulsed several times by French artillery fire. Late on the third day of the offensive the Germans managed to cross the Somme and Aisne despite bombing by the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force). The German success was costly and French troops resisted from woods and other cover, where the Germans had broken through. South of Abbeville, the German XV Corps avoided the woods roads and villages, to move over the slightly undulating country where there were few ditches, the tanks leading and infantry vehicles following. The Tenth Army was broken through and retreated to Rouen and southwards along the Seine. German spearheads were vulnerable to flank attacks but Luftwaffe operations obstructed French attempts to concentrate and the fear of air attack negated the mass and mobility of the French armies.

On 6 June, documents recovered from a dead German officer, gave the German programme for 7 and 8 June. Beauman, Evans and Marshall-Cornwall discussed the find at the Tenth Army HQ but Karslake was omitted, despite being the senior British officer in France. German forces were to reach the area of Forges-les-Eaux in the area of the Beauman Division and capture Rouen on 8 June. During the meeting, the isolated position of the 51st (Highland) Division and doubts about French assurances, were discussed and the view was taken that the division was doomed. Karslake had already made representations to the CIGS about the lack of unity of command but on 6 June, Dill had written to the Swayne Mission at Georges's HQ that Brooke could be expected the following week and that the 52nd (Lowland) Division was due soon. Dill sent Pownall to France to discuss the new BEF with the French and to liaise with British commanders and Karslake told him that it was vital to withdraw the 51st (Highland) Division before it was too late. Karslake also urged Pownall to get Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke to France and establish a corps headquarters, to unify the command of all British forces, not necessarily under the authority of Altmayer, the Tenth Army commander. Although Brooke had been placed in command of the new BEF on 2 June, he remained in Britain until 12 June, by when the 51st (Highland) Division had been trapped and forced to surrender along with the rest of IX Corps.

2nd BEF
Brooke had returned from Dunkirk on 30 May and on 2 June, was told by Field Marshal John Dill to go back to France to assemble another BEF, with the 51st (Highland) Division and 1st Armoured Division that were already in France. The 52nd Lowland Division and the 1st Canadian Division from Britain, were to be followed by the 3rd Division as soon as it was re-equipped. The II Corps headquarters had been spread around Britain after its return from Dunkirk and his first choice of chief of staff was busy with Lord Gort the former BEF commander, writing dispatches. Brook warned Dill and the Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden that the enterprise was futile, except as a political gesture. Brook was told that on return to France he would come under the authority of Weygand. In France, Fonblanque was still in command of the lines-of-communication troops of the original BEF and lieutenant-generals Henry Karslake and James Marshall-Cornwall were assisting with command. A brigade group of the 52nd Lowland Division departed for France on 7 June but Brooke took until 12 June to arrive.

On 13 June, the RAF made a maximum effort to help the French armies that had been broken through on the Marne. The Germans were across the Seine in the west and the French armies near Paris fell back, dividing the Tenth Army, part on the channel coast and the rest retiring towards Paris. The German advance threatened the airfields of the AASF, which was ordered to retreat towards Nantes or Bordeaux, while supporting the French armies for as long as they kept fighting. The AASF flew armed reconnaissance sorties over the Seine from dawn and German columns were attacked by a force of 10 Battles, then a second formation of 15 Battles and then 15 Blenheims. On the Marne, 12 Battles attacked a concentration of German troops and tanks, followed by an attack by 26 Battles, which lost six shot down and then a third attack by 15 Blenheims from Bomber Command that lost another four. RAF attacks continued through the night, with 44 sorties over the Seine, 20 north of Paris, 41 on the Marne and 59 against road and rail communications and against woods reported by the French to be full of German troops. Fighter sorties had been hampered by bad weather and were limited to coastal patrols.

Next day attacks resumed against German units south of the Seine but the weather had worsened and fewer sorties were flown. A raid by 24 Blenheims with fighter escort was made on Merville airfield for a loss of seven aircraft and ten Fighter Command squadrons patrolled twice in squadron strength or provided bomber escorts, in the biggest effort since Dunkirk, as fighters of the AASF patrolled south of the Seine. During the night, 72 bombers attacked German marshalling yards, forests and dropped mines in the Rhine, for a loss of two aircraft. The remnants of the 1st Armoured Division and two brigades of the Beauman Division were south of the river, along with thousands of lines-of-communication troops but only the 157th (Highland Light Infantry) Brigade of the 52nd (Lowland) Division, which had commenced disembarkation on 7 June, engaged in military operations, occupying successive defensive, positions under command of the Tenth Army. The French armies were forced into divergent retreats, with no obvious front line; on 12 June, Weygand had recommended that the French government seek an armistice, which led to the abortive plan to create a defensive zone in Brittany.

On 14 June, Brooke was able to prevent the rest of the 52nd (Lowland) Division being sent to join the 157th Infantry Brigade and during the night he was informed that he was no longer under French command and must prepare to withdraw the British forces from France. Marshall-Cornwall was ordered to take command of all British forces under the Tenth Army as Norman Force and while continuing to co-operate, withdraw towards Cherbourg. The rest of the 52nd (Lowland) Division was ordered back to a defence line near Cherbourg to cover the evacuation on 15 June. The AASF was also directed to send the last bomber squadrons back to Britain and use the fighter squadrons to cover the evacuations. The German advance over the Seine had paused while bridges were built but the advance began again during the day, with the 157th Infantry Brigade engaged east of Conches-en-Ouche with the Tenth Army. The army was ordered to retreat to a line from Verneuil to Argentan and the Dives river, where the British took over an 8 mi front, either side of the Mortagne-au-Perche–Verneuil-sur-Avre road. German forces followed up quickly and on 16 June, Altmayer ordered the army to retreat into the Brittany peninsula. Operation Aerial, the final Allied evacuation, had begun on 15 June.

Breton redoubt
On 29 May, the Prime Minister of France, Paul Reynaud, replied to Weygand, rejecting his recommendation that an armistice be considered and asked him to study the possibility that a national redoubt could be established around a naval port in the Brittany peninsula, to retain freedom of the seas and contact with French allies. The idea was discussed by the French and British governments on 31 May and an operational instruction was drawn up on 5 June, in which Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke was appointed to command the new BEF ("2nd BEF") being prepared for France. Plan W, the original plan to land the BEF in 1939 was used, with the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division being directed to Cherbourg, to assemble at Evreux, ready to support the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (major-General Victor Fortune), north of the Seine. On 6 June, Weygand issued orders to begin work on the redoubt, under the command of General René Altmayer.

German forces crossed the Seine on 9 June, cutting off the 51st (Highland) Division north of the river, two days after 52nd (Lowland) Division had begun to land and the assembly of the division was changed to Rennes in Brittany; the 157th (Highland Light Infantry) Brigade which arrived first, was directed to Beaumont near Le Mans, the rest of the division to follow on. The 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division began its arrival at Brest on 11 June and was sent to Sablé-sur-Sarthe, on the assumption that two fresh divisions would be enough to allow the Tenth Army and attached British troops to retreat through them and take up positions prepared around the Brest peninsula. That day, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council met at Briare and General Charles de Gaulle (Minister of War) was sent to Rennes to survey progress on the redoubt; on 12 June, De Gaulle reported that Quimper would be a favourable place for the government to retreat to, since it would be easy to take ship to England or Africa, since the prospect of maintaining a redoubt in Brittany was non-existent.

Altmayer had reported that work had begun on defences, civilian labour had been recruited and 3,000 Polish troops had arrived to begin work, despite a lack of civil engineering machinery. Churchill visited France for the last time on 13 June, met Reynaud and approved the project. Brook had visited the 1st Canadian Division in England to give the gist of the plan and met Weygand and Georges at Briare on 14 June. It was agreed that the plan was futile but the will of the civilian leadership must be respected and a joint agreement was signed. Brook telephoned Dill in London to find that no agreement had been made with the French and after checking called with the news that "Mr. Churchill knew nothing about the Brittany project". Churchill was of the view that the new corps forming in France should stay, at least until the final French collapse and then return through the nearest port. Without the support of the 52nd Division on the left flank, the Tenth Army was cut off from Brittany, when two German divisions got into the peninsula first and forced the French line of retreat south to the Loire. French troops already in the area were able to join the main French force, after the Canadians had departed for England.

title: Operation Cycle