Contents

Prologue: “The Past Is a Foreign Country”

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PART ONEThe Second Great War

1. To the Brink

2. The Failure of Diplomacy

3. “Speak for England!”

4. The Phoney War

5. Operation Pied Piper

6. Case Yellow

7. “Gad, Gentlemen, Here’s to Our Greatest Victory of the War”

8. Hitler “Missed the Bus”

9. “In the Name of God, Go”

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PART TWOThe Battle of France

10. “The Top of the Greasy Pole”

11. Rommel Crosses the Meuse

12. “We Are Beaten; We Have Lost the Battle”

13. “The Mortal Gravity of the Hour”

14. May 20, 1940: “A Pretty Fair Pig of a Day”

15. “The Fatal Slope”

16. “Hard and Heavy Tidings”

17. The Sharp End of the Stick

18. The Battle of Arras: “We May Be foutu”

19. “Their Zest and Delight in Shooting Germans Was Most Entertaining”

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PART THREEDunkirk

20. The Burghers of Calais

21. “Fight It Out to the Bitter End”

22. Flag Officer, Dover

23. The Home Front

24. “Presume Troops Know They Are Cutting Their Way Home to Blighty”

25. Dynamo

26. “Fight It Out, Here or Elsewhere”

27. Holding the Line

28. “The Little Ships”

29. “The Best Mug of Tea I Have Ever Had in My Life”

30. “Arm in Arm”

31. “We Are Going to Beat Them”

32. The Dunkirk Spirit

33. At Sea

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Index