Dunkirk

Between May and June 1940, Dunkirk was the theatre of one of the greatest maritime evacuations in history. After a lightning attack by the German army, French and British troops beat a retreat to the coast. Winston Churchill had only been prime minister for 16 days. While almost the entire British Expeditionary Force was in danger of being captured or killed and as some of his cabinet colleagues advised him to press for peace with Hitler, Churchill insisted on continuing the fight and ordered the troops to be repatriated. When he launched Operation Dynamo (code name for the evacuation plan), the first gloomy estimates were that only 45,000 soldiers trapped on the beaches could be rescued, but ten days later more than 338,000 men had been brought home. The bulk of the troops crossed the Channel in Royal and Merchant Navy ships, aided by a fleet of small civilian craft from Leigh-on-Sea which would play a crucial role in the rescue. Told from the perspective of the decision makers and the soldiers, sailors and civilians caught up in the events of those desperate days, this factual drama follows the race against time to save the Allied armies trapped in France.

United Kingdom - 2003 - 3 x 1h - Betacam Digital • 16/9 - Colour

Director
Alex Holmes
Script
Neil McKay, Lisa Osborne, Alex Holmes
Camera
Graham Smith
Sound
Stuart Bruce
Sets
Maurice Cain
Editing
Ollie Huddleston, Julian Rodd
Music
Samuel Sim
Cast
Simon Russel Beale, Adrian Rawlins, Clive Brunt, Phil Cornwell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ricci Harnett, Nicholas Jones
Narrator
Timothy Dalton

Production
BBC TV,
201 Wood Lane,
W12 7TS Londres, Royaume-Uni
Tél : +44 208 752 52 50
Fax : +44 208 752 67 14
E-mail : amy.lee-jones@bbc.co.uk

Sales
BBC Worldwide Ltd,
Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane,
W12 7TQ Londres, Royaume-Uni
Tél : +44 20 8433 2000
Fax : +44 20 8746 0310
E-mail : sarah.doole@bbc.com