From disaster to deliverance – the epic story of Dunkirk

Times of June 3 which captures best the sense of history and occasion that the British government wanted to instil into its vulnerable population: “So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence. In that harbour, such a hell on earth as never blazed before, at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that had hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy, this shining thing in the souls of free men, which Hitler cannot command. It is in the great tradition of democracy. It is a future. It is victory.”

Of course, none of this sort of hyperbole and embellishment came close to capturing the reality of Dunkirk. Reports of desertion, anarchy and the 30,000 left behind were suppressed. So too was the fact that the returning troops were often filled with despair – bedraggled and disillusioned.

Cyril Ray, of the Guardian, as with all of the war correspondents, covered the evacuation from point of return and not from Dunkirk itself. He later told David Jessel of troops “coming back in a shocking state... morale shot to ribbons, throwing their rifles away on the railway lines saying, ‘the buggers will be here tomorrow’.”

But Ray did not report that reality. Because the censors would not have allowed it and because there was a very effective system of news management in place to make sure that he didn’t.

There were no British war reporters at all in France at the time and as Clive Ponting indicates, in this time of national crisis they were simply expected to behave as if they were an arm of government.

On May 28, General Mason-Macfarlane, the head of military intelligence, told selected journalists: “I’m afraid there is going to be a considerable shock for the British public. It is your duty to act as shock-absorbers, so I have prepared... a statement that can be published, subject to censorship.”

So the press absorbed the shock of Dunkirk in the only way it could – by emphasising the positive.

In an attempt to understand the situation let’s remember that the journalists were, at this time and as citizens, very much a part of this very real fight for survival and not objective reporters of the war.

To some, like Tom Hopkinson of the Picture Post, his task as an editor in this situation was not to tell the British people the truth.

Hopkinson felt that there was something more important than telling the truth. Perhaps history has proved him right.

A version of this article appeared on www.theconversation.com