289 tanks, 63,897 army vehicles and 2,472 guns were left behind at Dunkirk.
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Yes, some had to be left behind but more than 198,000 British and nearly 140,000 French troops were evacuated in 9 days from the area around Dunkirk.
The Germans outflanked the Allied armies in Eastern France by go through Belgium in a matter of hours. They cut off the British to the North and started to encircle them. The English retreated by the port of Dunkirk. Most of the soldiers managed to get back to England on thousands of ships that came to evacuate them, but, they left their heavy equipment, vehicles, and weapons behind, when they left France by the beginning of June 1940.
That could be the battle of Dunkirk, but to be true, very few French were allowed to embark. The effort aimed at the British expeditionary force. French regiments were left on the back to protect their reimbarkement. They bore the brunt of the German attack and only a few disbanded units made it to the shore. By the time they arrived there were not enough boats left.
The USN. British warships were considered "short legged" by the USN. HMS warships were built for re-fuelling at naval bases; and had not learned nor were they equipped for "Fuelling At Sea" as USN warships could do; and nearly all Australian warships were British built. Consequently, British/Australian warships were often left out of the battle when battle did come. The British were by no means happy about this. But it couldn't be helped...the US had a war to win (keep up or be left behind!).
Beginning of Summer 1940. It helped evacuate about a half a million allied soldiers who would otherwise have become POW's. These soldiers could subsequently contribute to the allied landing later in the war.Although Dunkirk can only be seen as a defeat of the British & French in France in 1940 the fact that over 330, 000 returned to Britain in the litte ships was an amazing escape. They had to leave all their equipment behind, of course, but it was a morale boost to think these men were not captured en masse by the German attackers. Op Dynamo, while not a victory showed the Blitzkreig could be countered. It would be a long time before the Allies were able to reply, at least in France in a meaningful way, but I guess many who left Dunkirk would reurn 4 years later in Overlord (Normandy).