Salvation at Dunkirk

George Tanton explores The Salvation Army’s role in one of the most significant episodes of the Second World War

MAY 1940. Hitler’s feared panzer divisions had broken through the Ardennes, trapping the depleted Allied armies at Dunkirk. With the English Channel at their backs, the Allies faced immeasurable odds, as the evacuation – known as Operation Dynamo – commenced. From 26 May to 4 June 1940, 338,000 Allied servicemen were evacuated, along with 123,000 beleaguered French and Belgian troops. Amid the chaos and trauma was The Salvation Army.

In September 1939, Salvationist field ambulances had accompanied the British Expeditionary Force across the Channel. In a report by The West Middlesex Gazette, published 17 days after the evacuation, Colonel Booth Davey praised the aid-workers of The Salvation Army in France, particularly the women, who ‘had not flinched even when confronted with the horrors of war’.

During the retreat to Dunkirk, The Salvation Army lost £65,000 worth of medical supplies, many of which had to be abandoned or was destroyed. On the beaches, Salvationists prayed with the men as the Luftwaffe rained down bombs and bullets. The Evening Telegraph reported that, during the evacuation: ‘Salvation Army workers stood at their posts until the last possible moment. Never once did they leave the troops until they were ordered to do so by the military authorities.’

One Salvationist serviceman who survived Dunkirk was 19-year-old

Private Harold Banks of the Royal Berkshire Regiment. He sustained a leg wound, caused by shrapnel from an exploding shell. He also witnessed two of his comrades die in an aerial attack.

His son, Commissioner Keith Banks, recalls that Dunkirk was ‘so brutal for him that he wouldn’t talk about it’.

During the evacuation, Harold accidentally dropped his Bible over the side of the boat, but thankfully retrieved it. That Bible is now treasured by Keith as a reminder of his father’s wartime experience.

A member of Wokingham Corps in his civilian life, Harold’s Christian faith sustained him during the war.

‘His trust in the Lord was beyond any doubt and any question,’ testifies Keith.

Back in England, The Salvation Army was ready to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the evacuated Allied troops. The 1941 year book reports: ‘Our mobile canteens supplied tens of thousands of the British and French troops evacuated from Dunkirk with tea and refreshments as they landed at south coast ports. The canteen staffs toiled day and night, spurred on by the men’s gratitude.’

In the aftermath of the evacuation, Salvationists were also heavily involved in assisting refugees. A French army officer had urgently enquired to Major Florence Langford about the fate and welfare of his family. This story was reported in a Lincolnshire paper: ‘[He] was full of anxiety about his wife and child, caught in the refugee sweep from northern France. Called back to his regiment, he told his story to the major, who arranged for enquiries to be made, and two days later wired him that all was well, and the missing ones had been sent to relations in Yorkshire, after an adventurous escape from Dunkirk.’

Reminiscing at a lecture in Belfast in 1954, Commissioner Joshua

James championed the work of Salvationists during the Second World War: ‘[They] followed the example of Christ who washed the feet of his disciples. When the men came back from Dunkirk, members of The Salvation Army washed and bandaged 6,500 feet.’