The lost ‘tail’ of the BEF
Although around 450,000 British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Czech, and Polish troops were evacuated from Dunkirk, Cherbourg, and Brest by 25 June 1940, the British Expeditionary Force alone suffered 68,000 casualties in the fall of France. The Germans had over 30,000 Brits, including more than 10,000 downcast men of the 51st Highland Division, in “der lager.”
Almost as bad for the British war effort was the loss of 10 full divisions’ worth of material, as most of the troops managed to escape with only the clothes on their backs, many without even a rifle.
Thus:
Not a lot of equipment is getting off the beach, here, as members of the Royal Ulster Rifles are seen here waiting on an improvised pier of lorries to evacuate Dunkirk during low tide. June 1940.
This was truly a setback for one of the most modern armies in the world at the time. You see, unlike the German Army, which always relied on as many as one million horses during the war, the BEF was fully mechanized in 1940.
German troops relax on the Dunkirk beaches. In the background, the French destroyer L’Adroit is grounded and broken.
German soldiers collect Allied equipment at Dunkirk, 1940 via NAM
Dunkirk, the Germans looking at piles of Vickers Machine Gun Transit Chests. Over 10,000 MGs were left behind
French troops push away an immobilised British Universal Carrier tracked vehicle. 1940 Dunkirk
Dunkirk: German soldiers pose with a British “tin pan” and French helmet, and a damaged French 25mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun
As noted by the France and Flanders Campaign 1940, “from 2 seater cars to 15 cwt trucks to 6×4 tractors to trailers – the BEF lost 28,314 War Department B vehicles and lost 20,588 impressed civilian B vehicles (not including motorcycles).”
The National Army Museum puts the material loss at 64,000 vehicles, 20,000 motorcycles, and 2,500 guns.
Among those were over half of the British Army’s tanks (184 Cruiser tanks, 23 Matilda II’s, 77 Matilda I’s, and 331 Mark VI light tanks) and field artillery (509 2-pdr anti-tank guns, 704 18/25pdrs, 216 18pdrs, 96 4.5” howitzers, 221 6” howitzers, 51 4.5”/60 pdr guns), and a decent array of heavy artillery to include 13 8-inch howitzers, 29 9.2-inch guns, and four 12-inch railway guns.
The Germans, always equipment-hungry, would patch up and repair much of their newly inherited trophies, not for display, but for continued use in Russia, North Africa, and the Balkans.