DUNKIRK- MIRACLE RESCUE of ALLIED TROOPS.

King George V1 called the empire to urgent prayer for the preservation of the Allied army.    Adelaide Oval responded as a record 62,000 packed the ground.     Normally 50,000 was the capacity for Test cricket matches against England.  St Paul’s Anglican cathedral Melbourne was open for 24 hours for continuous prayer: so compelling was the danger of England’s invasion.

    Jock was a 20 year old Scottish boy who told me of his life-changing rescue.   

Nazi troops had driven the Allied forces, English, French, Belgian to the French beaches, pounding them with shells and machine gunfire. 400,000 British and allied troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, awaiting their overthrow from the then superior forces.  Winston Churchill hoped that 30,000 would survive.

Nazi Stuka dive-bombers hovered overhead, roaring, whining screaming, unable to penetrate the protective cloud of fog for 72 hours.  God had placed this shielding over the straits of Dover, where the Atlantic Ocean, North Sea and English channel met, forming a busy thoroughfare for shipping in the 21 mile Strait. Historically, it was always rough, never still for more than three minutes.  Now it was becalmed for 72 hours or 4,320 minutes during this God-controlled rescue mission.

Every available ship, boat, trawler, pleasure craft, fishing boat, was commissioned to sail to Dunkirk and ‘bring home the troops.’ 800 small boats and 222 battleships were deployed. Many small ships had never ventured into such waters.

All equipment, except their rifles, was left on the beach at Dunkirk.  Men waded out to sea, dragging their wounded mates, while covered by torrents of gunfire. . 

Men fought their way through the surf as it crashed on the beach, while some fell , too exhausted to recover from its pounding, yet many pushed  to the placid waters beyond. 

Destroyers anchored near to shore. Life-boat coxswains shouted through their loud hailers, ‘We are waiting in the fog for you.  Wade or swim to us. We are here to rescue you. We will come to you.’  Life boats from the destroyer dragged the wounded first and afterwards the exhausted, weakened, fearful young men into the life boats.

Stukas could not dive through the cloud covering with their destructive bomb blasts.  Every Stuka that did plunged into the English channel.  Whining, snarling engines above accompanied this extraordinary rescue mission.

Jock told of numbing hours in the water, of being dragged from the life boat and crawling onto the deck of a destroyer, blue, shivering and exhausted.  Sailors threw blankets over him to counter his hypothermia. Later, sailors brought mugs of cocoa.  Tears flooded his eyes. as  he recalled his mother’s  plea, ‘Jock, I am praying for you; ’ and his sister, ‘My brother, You need the Lord Jesus.  ‘ If you face a crisis in your army life, turn to the Lord Jesus and He will save you.’ This was his crisis hour, as Jock broke down, humbled himself and found the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He slept deeply, like a little child, dreaming he was safely home , and that the Good Shepherd had caught him up in His arms and carried him on His shoulder.  The chugging of the destroyer’s diesel engines was music to Jack , knowing that they would carry them to British soil.

50,000 men had died in their wild dash across the beaches to the ocean, staining the sand and water with their life blood.  

England welcomed them home, rehabilitating them.  They had been snatched from the ocean of death; protected by God’s lake-like calm and protective cloud cover.  Hope inspired the nation.   While many had carried their rifles, they had abandoned all heavy equipment on the beaches. God imbued the Allied with determination to continue the struggle until  victory.

338,000 troops were spared. Winston Churchill wrote of this Miraculous deliverance.

The term ‘miracle’ appears only once in many historic descriptions of God’s staggering intervention, but the supernatural evidence is undeniable.

I was entranced, sitting on the bed as Jock related his experience, while recovering from a severe, dengue attack in our 2/9 Australian General Hospital in Nazareth, our Lord’s boyhood home. Sixty years later, Jock’s account is vivid. 

The prayer of an empire under our late king was answered not only on the beaches of Dunkirk and the Straits of Dover , but also that God restrained Hitler from an apparently, inevitable invasion of UK when England was defenceless and unprepared.

However, the conversion of Jock and possibly thousands of others was the eternal outcome of the British Empire turning to God in effectual, fervent prayer.

Oh, that our nation would cry out to the living God for His salvation and cleansing.

God has said, ‘Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things that you do not know. ’ ( Jeremiah 33:3 )