Dunkirk evacuation: Operation dynamo 27th May to 4th June 1940 The mass evacuation by the Royal Navy involved a still unknown number of amateur sailors who, for days, risked their lives alongside serving troops in a remarkable rag-tag flotilla of boats which helped ferry soldiers - trapped by Adolf Hitler's forces - back across the Channel. By the end of the eighth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats.

1940: Dunkirk operation Veterans of Dunkirk have been reunited, seven decades after the celebrated rescue operation and ahead of an official reconstruction of the Channel crossing later this month

The return to Dunkirk: Poignant moment WW2 veterans aged 95 and 94 return to French port in flotilla of 'little ships' 75 years after they were among 300,000 Allied troops rescued in evacuation 

Now, 77 years later, director Christopher Nolan’s new movie Dunkirk is telling their harrowing story of survival — and real-life veterans of the battle are happy to help bring attention to the history-making events. “It is very important that people know about it,” Dunkirk veteran Garth Wright, 97, tells PEOPLE. “There are very few of us left and we have been through hell.” 96-year-old George Wagner, another British veteran of the battle, echoes Wright, telling PEOPLE it’s important for younger generations to understand how vital the battle was to the future of the country.

« The Dunkirk Spirit »: expression used today a determination to succeed despite being in a difficult or impossible situation, which many people think is a typical British quality. Definition in the Longman contemporary dictionary. The expression comes from the attitude shown by British people who went to Dunkirk in France in small boats to help to bring back British soldiers in World War II.