On this day in movie history – Dunkirk (2017 movie & books):

Dunkirk

directed and written by Christopher Nolan,

released in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2017.

Music by Hans Zimmer.

Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Lee Armstrong, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden, Luke Thompson, Michel Biel, Constantin Balsan, Billy Howle, Mikey Collins, Callum Blake, Dean Ridge, Bobby Lockwood, Will Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Nolan, James D’Arcy, Matthew Marsh, Cillian Murphy, Adam Long, Harry Styles, Miranda Nolan, Bradley Hall, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Brett Lorenzini, Michael Fox, Brian Vernel, Elliott Tittensor, Kevin Guthrie, Harry Richardson, Jochum ten Haaf, Johnny Gibbon, Richard Sanderson, Kim Hartman, Calam Lynch, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Tom Gill, John Nolan, Bill Milner, Jack Riddiford, Harry Collett, Eric Richard, Sam Aronow, Simon Ates, Sander Blom, Michael Caine, Sam Dacombe, Ross Donnelly, Dennis Eleveld, Paul Riley Fox, Jack Gover, Austin Head, Benjamin Hodder, Drew Neal Horton, Nick Howden-Steenstra, Sander Huisman, Christian Janner, Jedediah Jenk, Davey Jones, Robin Lee, Han Leopold, Samuel Louwagie, Valiant Michael, Thomas Millet, Conor O’Dowda, Johnny Otto, Robby Prinsen, Christian Roberts, Jan-Michael Rosner, Connor Ryan, Reinier Tetteroo, Pierre Valle, Michiel van Ieperen, Bram Vlot, Nick Vorsselman, Merlijn Willemsen, Nirman Wolf.

Recommended reading:

Dunkirk:
The History Behind the Major Motion Picture

by Joshua Levine.

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks.
Published 2017.

ISBN-10: 0062792148
ISBN-13: 978-0062792143

Description:

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

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 300,000 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.

 

The Miracle of Dunkirk:
The True Story of Operation Dynamo

by Walter Lord.

Published by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Published 2017.

ISBN-10: 1504047540
ISBN-13: 978-1504047548

Description:

In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear.

Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England.

Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,” The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).