A victory of sorts

Evacuation is as neutral a term as one might find to describe what happened at Dunkirk in May and June of 1940, and Michael Korda uses it frequently in Alone: Britain, Churchill and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory (2017). Yet as the subtitle indicates, other terms can be used as well.

At one point he refers to Dunkirk as a "victory of sorts." By the time it was over, the British people were celebrating the removal of some 400,000 British and French troops from France while under heavy fire from German forces. Yet it was also a defeat. British troops were in France to help stop the expected German attack that spring. They were pushed back further and further until the port town of Dunkirk remained their only path of escape across the English Channel. So escape and retreat are other words that can also apply to Dunkirk.

To the Germans it was a blunder. With more concentration of forces they could have easily prevented the evacuation of so many troops. Some French generals saw Dunkirk as a betrayal. They had, in fact, tried to keep French forces between the British and the channel to prevent what later occurred.

Yet Korda points out that nearly half of the troops evacuated were French. This did little good, however, for most of these were soon back in France, where they became prisoners of war upon the French surrender. And some of those French generals most critical of Britain's supposed lack of honor were quick to collaborate with the Nazis.

Although Dunkirk is likely what a reader will most remember about Alone, the book actually describes how the war started, how British attempts at appeasement failed and how Winston Churchill came to power. It is also, surprisingly, something of a memoir, even though the author was just six years old when these events occurred. Yet what memories he has remain vivid and fascinating

Korda was born to a prominent show business family. His mother was a successful stage actress. His father, Vincent, was a set designer for his brother, Alexander Korda, a major film director who was working on The Thief of Baghdad and That Hamilton Woman even as these events were unfolding. The author knew Hollywood actress Merle Oberon, then married to Alexander, as Auntie Merle. Korda writes that even while he was busy directing the British war effort, Churchill helped write dialogue for That Hamilton Woman, which he viewed as a propaganda film intended to help draw the United States into the war.

It took more than a year for the U.S., thanks to Pearl Harbor, to enter the war. And thus Korda's title: Alone.

Korda is a gifted writer. As in Ike: An American Hero, with its focus on D-Day, and With Wings Like Eagles, about the Battle of Britain, he describes key events in World War II in a simple way without being simplistic.