The author has interviewed hundreds of veterans of the Dunkirk evacuation and takes a look at Operation Dynamo with the perspective of history rather than through a haze of nostalgia. While the British were to remember Dunkirk as a narrow escape from a disaster brought about by the cowardice and incompetence of the French army, the French for their part, were to remember it as the climax of an act of betrayal by the British. This narrative describes how under daily calamities, the British and French readings of the battle situation slid apart.