The Belgian “Comet Line”  

The Onslaught Begins.

The date was set…Friday, September 1^st 1939, the time was exactly…0.4.45 a.m. and Hitler himself had given the order to unleash his own “New Style” of warfare upon Poland.

Hitler’s “Iron Fist” composed of 1,850,00 Wehrmacht and Waffen S.S. Infantry troops, motorized divisions, 3,100 tanks, 10,000 heavy artillery guns, accompanied by 2,100 Stuka dive bombers, heavy- bombers and fighter aircraft.

This was to be the innocent country that was to become Hitler’s testing ground, for it would suffer the full horror and terror of the “Blitzkrieg” that was rolling across the countryside destroying everything in its path. The beginning of the end for Poland had already started. The Army, and Air Force of Poland was decimated the destruction of a proud nation and a country would soon be headline news across the world….The Second World War, had begun…!!!

It didn’t take long for Hitler to turn his attention to the West… great fear and panic spread across the continent of Europe, nations now knew that it was going to be total war against the Nazi dictator, and were left in no doubt as to what their own country and people would suffer, for they would become subjects of Hitler’s barbarity and destruction. They too would feel and see the horror of the “Blitzkrieg”. His vast army headed towards the Low Countries and began the onslaught of terror…they all fell within weeks to his “Iron Fist”. This Nazi force occupied each country with complete ruthlessness creating fear and terror across the continent of Europe.

On Hitler’s orders the vast German Army ground to a halt on the outskirts of mostly destroyed town of Dunkirk and waited. Many soldiers had been caught unawares of the advancing German forces and fled inland deciding to try and make their own way back to England and avoid capture. However, it proved a near impossible task as the German Military were constantly on the look out searching for any British soldiers.  Meanwhile the decimated British Expeditionary Force along with thousands of Belgian and French army survivors numbering over 325, 000 soldiers stood completely defeated on the sand dunes by the sea. For those  left on the beaches at Dunkirk could clearly see the white cliffs of Dover across the short expanse of water, it was their home and their refuge, the distant chalk hills that seemed to rise out of the sea on the horizon gave them hope, but hope was running out fast, and their only chance of rescue lay in the hands of the country that was so near and yet so far away.