The epic true story of the Battle of Dunkirk—now a major motion picture by Christopher Nolan, starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and Mark Rylance.

New York Times Bestseller

"This book, magnificently edited by Joshua Levine, is a great tribute to the extraordinary spirit of an army shattered in battle but determined not to surrender." —Peter Snow, author of When Britain Burned the White House

The Battle of Dunkirk, in May/June 1940, is remembered as a stunning defeat, yet a major victory as well. The Nazis had beaten back the Allies and pushed them across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,zero Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war. Now, historian Joshua Levine explores the real lives of those soldiers, bombed and strafed on the beaches for days on end, without food or ammunition; the civilians whose boats were overloaded; the airmen who risked their lives to buy their companions on the ground precious time; and those who did not escape.