Cloud Cover
The Luftwaffe staged numerous devastating raids on the port, beaches, and areas around Dunkirk. However, their effectiveness was mercifully limited by frequent low clouds, rain, fog, and smoke. Even though the sun shone brightly at the Luftwaffe bases, flying conditions were impossible over Dunkirk on May 28 and 30, and for parts of May 27, 29, and 31.
Henry Bond was an engineer with the 700th Construction Company. His unit reached the outskirts of Dunkirk on May 27, and for two days they waited anxiously for instructions to embark, all the while under frequent artillery and air attack. When the call finally came, no vehicles were available, so the move had to be on foot, the slow and dangerous way. Bond wrote:
Rain commenced falling heavily and in answer to our fervent prayers it increased and continued for the whole of our 4 mile trek along the wide promenade of Malo-les-Bains to the jetty at Dunkerque. Thanks to the providential rain and I feel that only, we were spared a bombing and machine gun attack along the prom where there was little or no cover.18
In addition to the beneficial changes in surf conditions, the “providential” rain over Dunkirk was an equally amazing manifestation of God’s miraculous intervention. During biblical times there were many examples of God bringing changes in the weather. On the catastrophic level he brought the Flood, ultimately to give mankind a new beginning. On another occasion, he brought drought to Israel under the misguided reign of Ahab. He has often intervened in history, just as he does in our lives, to fulfill his own plans for mankind and for us individually.
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens.
—Genesis 6:17
Now Elijah… said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
—1 Kings 17:1
Captured British soldiers at Dunkirk. (National Archives)
Soldiers wait to be evacuated. (Imperial War Museum, HU 1135, Collection of Major H. E. N. Bredin)
Troops lined up on the Dunkirk beaches. (Imperial War Museum, NYP 68075)