Movie Dunkirk blasted for inaccuracies after IGNORING sacrifice of Birmingham soldiers.

 

Historian hits out at the inaccuracies in the blockbuster starring Harry Styles and Tom Hardy.

But while it shows the famous little ships which went to the aid of the British Army and evacuated the French beach between May 26 and June 4 1940, it leaves out the vital role played by brave Birmingham soldiers who remained behind to fight while the rest of the Army retreated.

And it doesn’t mention the Massacre of Wormhout, where dozens of prisoners were killed in cold blood.

Author Hugh Sebag-Montefiore has thoroughly researched the period for his book Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, which has been updated and released as a new audiobook.

He says: “It’s a romantic myth to give the Navy and the little ships all the credit for the evacuation. Although they played a crucial role, it is now clear that the evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for those who remained behind to fight on.

This rearguard included the men serving with the 2nd Battalion the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, many of whom lived in the Birmingham area before going off to war.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the 2nd Royal Warwicks were sacrificed so that the road to Dunkirk could be protected, but their contribution has been totally ignored by the film.

The retreat could only be achieved if some British troops were to line the two sides of a secure corridor up which the bulk of the British Army could reach the coast.

The Royal Warwicks were ordered to hold Wormhout, one of the strong points on the southern side of the corridor, and were attacked by German tanks and infantry on May 28.

“It was an uneven contest. The bullets from the British rifles bounced off the tanks as if they were peas thrown at a brick wall.

And although the men from Birmingham repulsed some of the tanks by rushing out in front of them and lighting the petrol they had poured onto the tracks, others eventually broke through the thin British line and took the British prisoner.

It was what happened afterwards which was to make the events at Wormhout a byword for German brutality.

“The first sign that the prisoners were not going to be treated kindly by their captors from the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment came when a German soldier approached a wounded British soldier and shot him in cold blood.

Another survivor saw 15 to 20 men being lined up outside a factory building and mowed down by machine guns.

Some 90 prisoners were also herded into a barn outside the village, into which Germans threw grenades.

The right arm of Royal Warwick Private Bert Evans was shattered by a grenade but his life was saved by Captain James Lynn-Allen, who dragged him out and supported him until they reached a nearby duck pond.

But there they met a German who shot Lynn-Allen in the head and Evans in the neck. Evans collapsed into the pond, only coming up for air after the German had disappeared. He managed to crawl to a nearby farmhouse where he was captured by a German ambulance unit.

Mr Sebag-Montefiore says: “This time captivity meant security, a miraculous ending to the horrific chain of events that had seen all but eight of his comrades in the barn being massacred.

“Out of three companies who fought at Wormhout, only seven officers and 130 men were counted when the remnants made it back to Dunkirk.”