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Dunkirk - one Freeper's opinion
19th June 2017

Posted on 07/19/2017 6:53:21 AM PDT by naturalman1975

I just got back from seeing Dunkirk and I was impressed. Speaking as a military historian it seemed accurate enough for a film that is quite clearly stated to be a fictional account with fictional characters not a docudrama. I was worried that a modern treatment might head towards the politically correct or the overly mawkish, but, it delivered what I was hoping to see.

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
- Winston Churchill, June 4th 1940

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over... the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.
- Winston Churchill, June 18th 1940.

Today's challenge is to be worthy of what those people did. I'm not sure we are always succeeding in that. If we're not, we need to try harder. Or we will ultimately see the end of that Christian civilisation and we will fall into an abyss of a dark age, even now. A film isn't enough to fix what is broken, but this film may at least get some people thinking in the right direction if they've lost the path.


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: churchill; dunkirk; wwii
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1 posted on 07/19/2017 6:53:21 AM PDT by naturalman1975
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To: naturalman1975

WW II was my Dad’s war. He would have liked to see this film.


2 posted on 07/19/2017 6:57:05 AM PDT by Ciexyz (I'm conservative & traditionalist.)
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To: naturalman1975

Mr. Mercat and I spent 4 nights at a campground there, on the beach. Beautiful place. Safe. Clean. Cheap.


3 posted on 07/19/2017 6:58:48 AM PDT by Mercat (I know my redeemer lives.)
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To: naturalman1975

As if we don’t all know it, today’s youts (for the most part) have no clue what sacrifice is. Or actual oppression.


4 posted on 07/19/2017 7:02:00 AM PDT by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?!)
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To: naturalman1975

Probably Winston is spinning at about 2500 rpm these days.


5 posted on 07/19/2017 7:04:14 AM PDT by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?!)
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To: naturalman1975

My Father’s battalion was one of those which seemed to always be in interesting places. Not always in the middle of combat, tho.

They were at Normandy, Saint Lo. The assault crossing of the Roer, The Bulge, Assault crossing of the Rhine, etc.

Soon after the war they were at Potsdam, Lake Wansee, and Berlin.


6 posted on 07/19/2017 7:06:16 AM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: rktman

The sad thing is that LaFarge cashed in his chips after the Brexit vote and abandoned the task to the totally inept May. As the Brits say, she’s made a hash of things. There is nobody speaking with a clear voice for the protection of Britain’s heritage. All May is really doing is slowing unfettered immigration, but she still drinks the multi-cult koolaod that islam is the “religion of peace”.


7 posted on 07/19/2017 7:11:11 AM PDT by littleharbour
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To: naturalman1975

Hitler blew it. He offered modest resistance to the Brits and other allies in their bug-out back to England.

He blew that and he foolishly declared war on the US and even worse..... Russia.

He seemed the genius after Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Holland and France. His alignment with the Soviet Union was played so well, Stalin didn’t believe it when he attacked them.

Thank goodness he screwed up so Royally. Too bad we aligned ourselves with the Soviets so closely. Our big WW 2 mistake


8 posted on 07/19/2017 7:13:04 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: naturalman1975

I’m going Saturday. WWII was such a vast enterprise that you can get away with putting just about any story you want in a movie and it probably happened to someone somewhere. They probably didn’t research everything so they called it fictional.


9 posted on 07/19/2017 7:17:21 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
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To: naturalman1975

Thanks for the review. I’m planning on seeing this.


10 posted on 07/19/2017 7:20:55 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: rktman

Be careful not to slander an entire generation. We have a complete volunteer Army, Znavy, and Marine Corp populated mainly by “today’s youts”.

Dont throw the baby out with the bath water.


11 posted on 07/19/2017 7:24:32 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (Trump: What to do now I can't repeal Obamacare? I know, lets start a war with Russia!)
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To: naturalman1975

Finely a welcome relief from the drek Hollywood has been churning out of late. For the price of admission plus the mandatory popcorn and drink, I am very selective on which movies I will spend that much. Dunkirk seems to be worth the cost.


12 posted on 07/19/2017 7:24:39 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcherhttp://www.stone)
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To: naturalman1975

Whenever I hear recordings of the first of those two Churchill speeches, I can’t help but think of Supertramp’s song “Fool’s Overture”, which very effectively used samples from that very same speech.


13 posted on 07/19/2017 7:28:21 AM PDT by Kriggerel ("All great truths are hard and bitter, but lies... are sweeter than wild honey" (Ragnar Redbeard))
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To: naturalman1975

Hard to get too exited about “Dunkirk.” “Heroic” my left foot. Those men should all have been cornered and captured. They had no chance...except for the fact that Hitler was a psycho for hesitating on the Wehrmacht order to encircle the troops, then listening to the fat moron Hermann Georing and giving the Luftwaffe the go-ahead instead. That mindless delay is what saved the troops, and Britain. It was one of Hitler’s 3 fatal blunders. The other two being the declaration of war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, and Operation Barbarrossa before the West was defeated.


14 posted on 07/19/2017 7:29:14 AM PDT by montag813
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To: naturalman1975

In 1962, while traveling by car from Paris to Brussels, we stopped for dinner in Dunkerque. Shortly after we sat down, a French family sitting next to us got up and moved to the other side of the room.

My mother explained that the family moved because they resented us as Americans and that they were angry that we had bombed the Dunkerque area so heavily during WWII. Even though I was still in grade school, I wondered if that French family would have preferred living under the Nazis because that was the only alternative to bombing them in order to drive them out.


15 posted on 07/19/2017 7:30:40 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Vaquero

“Too bad we aligned ourselves with the Soviets so closely. Our big WW 2 mistake”

Can’t believe you said that. 20M Russians died in WWII. Russia provided the bodies and we provided weapons, food, supplies. Because of the Russians we got off light. We had about 300K kia’s in the European theater and about 100K in the Pacific. Who knows how the war would have turned out without the Russian meat grinder. I know that we (U.S.) would not have accepted casualties anywhere what the Soviets did. Just as a side note, It was estimated that an invasion of Japan would cost the U.S. around 500K casualties, maybe more. And, Roosevelt and his staff were desperate for an alternative solution. Thankfully, the atomic bomb came on-line at just the right time.


16 posted on 07/19/2017 7:31:29 AM PDT by snoringbear (E.oGovernment is the Pimp,)
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To: montag813

Whatever you may think of the service of the British Expeditionary Force, there was plenty of heroism at Dunkirk. If nothing else, the story of the civilians who sailed across in their little ships should never be forgotten. A number of the original ships were used in the film which I was pleased to see.


17 posted on 07/19/2017 7:34:22 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: naturalman1975

You mean the hero of the movie wasn’t a transgender black midget?


18 posted on 07/19/2017 7:37:42 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: naturalman1975
Dunkirk, 1940:

Dunkirk today:


19 posted on 07/19/2017 7:41:33 AM PDT by TADSLOS (Reset Underway!)
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To: naturalman1975; montag813
The Brits did an astounding thing, rescuing the BEF and getting them home. I will reserve my opinion of the movie until I see it (I have never seen a realistic war movie).

Whatever one may think of the Brits' tactics, techniques, and employment, they were always resourceful and courageous.

20 posted on 07/19/2017 7:43:16 AM PDT by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
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