Battle of France and the Low Countries May-June 1940 (Album)

 The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940, by Charles Cundall (1890-1971).  On the left of the painting stretch sand-dunes covered with groups and long lines of khaki-dressed troops. Small boats loaded with troops move out from the sea shore towards larger vessels to the right of the work. Across the centre troops queue along a makeshift jetty towards the waiting ships. In the left background huge black smoke clouds from the town fill the sky. Aircraft fly amongst explosions from anti-aircraft fire, one plane plummeting towards the right horizon. (Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM ART LD 305)

 

The Battle of France (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and France during the Second World War. The plan for the invasion of the Low Countries and France was called Fall Gelb (Case Yellow or the Manstein plan). Fall Rot (Case Red) was planned to finish off the French and British after the evacuation at Dunkirk. The Low Countries and France were defeated and occupied by Axis troops down to the French demarcation line.

On 3 September 1939, France and Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, over the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. In early September 1939, the French army began the limited Saar Offensive but by mid-October had withdrawn to the start line. On 10 May 1940, Wehrmacht armies invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and parts of France.

In Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), German armored units advanced through the Ardennes, crossed the Meuse and raced down the Somme valley, cutting off and surrounding the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium to meet the German armies there. British, Belgian and French forces were pushed back to the sea by the Germans where the British and French navies evacuated the encircled elements of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French and Belgian armies from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo.

German forces began Fall Rot (Case Red) on 5 June 1940. The remaining Allied divisions in France, sixty French and two British, made a determined stand on the Somme and Aisne rivers but were defeated by the German combination of air superiority and armored mobility. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and began the Italian invasion of France. German armies outflanked the Maginot Line and pushed deep into France, occupying Paris unopposed on 14 June. After the flight of the French government and the collapse of the French Army, German commanders met with French officials on 18 June to negotiate an end to hostilities.

On 22 June 1940, the Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed by France and Germany. The fascist and collaborationist Vichy government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain replaced the Third Republic and German military occupation began along the French North Sea and Atlantic coasts and their hinterlands. After the armistice, Italy occupied a small area in the south-east of France. The Vichy regime retained the zone libre (free zone) in the south. Following Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa, in November 1942, in Case Anton, the Germans and Italians took control of the zone until France was liberated by the Allies in 1944.

 

A Panzerkampfwagen III moves through a destroyed French town in 1940.

 

The Royal Irish Fusiliers of the British Expeditionary Forces come to the aid of French farmers whose horses have been commandeered by the French Army. A Bren Gun Carrier is hitched to a plow to help with the spring tilling of the soil on March 27, 1940.

 

A German soldier operates his 2cm FlaK 30 anti-aircraft gun at an unknown location, in support of a German motorized convoy as they march into Danish territory, on April 9, 1940.

 

Reconnaissance squads head the German advance into Luxembourg, on May 10, 1940. The vehicle at right is a leichter Panzerspähwagen (Fu) (Sd. Kfz. 223), a light armored radio car. The sign reads Reich Border.

 

French Hotchkiss H39 tanks pass through a bombarded French town on their way to the front line in France, on May 25, 1940.

 

German motorcyclists pass through a destroyed town in France in 1940.

 

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspects Britain’s Grenadier Guards standing at attention in front of their Bren Gun Carriers in July 1940.

 

The remains of a naval battle in Narvik, Norway in 1940. Several battles between German and Norwegian forces took place in the Ofotfjord in the spring of 1940.

 

A formation of German Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers are flying over an unknown location, in this May 29, 1940 photo.

 

A Junkers Ju 52 (right) transport banks after dropping its parachute troops on Fort Eben Emael in Belgium, on May 30, 1940, as part of a larger surprise attack.

 

A formation of German Dornier Do 17Z light bombers, flying over France on June 21, 1940.

 

Oil tanks burn in Dunkirk, France, on June 5, 1940. The aircraft in the right foreground is an RAF Coastal Command Lockheed Hudson on patrol.

 

Bombs let loose by the Royal Air Force during a raid on Abbeville Aerodrome, now held by the Germans, in France, on July 20, 1940.

 

Members of a British Royal Air Force bombing squadron hold thumbs up on April 22, 1940, as they return to home base from an attack on German warships off Bergen, Norway. The aircraft is a Handley Page Hampden.

 

Waves of German paratroopers land on snow-covered rock ledges in the Norwegian port and city of Narvik, during the German invasion of the Scandinavian country.

 

A group of German Gebirgsjägers (mountain troops) in action in Narvik, Norway, in 1940.

 

German soldiers move through a burning Norwegian village, in April 1940, during the German invasion.

 

An aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London, England, with St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background.

 

German bombs miss their targets and explode in the sea during an air raid on Dover, England, in July 1940.

 

Members of the Black Watch, one of the famed Scottish regiments, undergo rough training in the South Coast sector of England, in 1940.

 

Belgian women tearfully have goodbye to husbands and sons leaving for the front line as the threat of invasion hung heavily over their homeland, on May 11, 1940.

 

French soldiers load a piece of artillery in a wood somewhere in the Western Front on May 29, 1940. The shell will be fired into the German-occupied sector of the soldiers’ homeland.

 

German parachute troops man a machine gun post in the Netherlands, on June 2, 1940. This photo came from a camera found on German parachute troops who were taken prisoner.

 

Belgians blasted this bridge across the Meuse River in the town of Dinant, Belgium, but shortly, a wooden bridge built by German sappers was standing next to the ruins, on June 20, 1940.

 

A woman, fleeing from her home with the few possessions she can carry, takes cover behind a tree by the roadside, somewhere in Belgium, on May 18, 1940, during an aerial attack by German planes. Her bicycle, with her belongings tied to it, rests against the tree, to which she clings for protection.

 

Hundreds of thousands of British and French troops who had fled advancing German forces massed on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, on June 4, 1940, awaiting ships to carry them to England.

 

British and French troops wade through shallow water along the beach at Dunkirk, France on June 13, 1940 toward small rescue craft that will bring them to England. Some 700 private vessels joined dozens of military craft to ferry the men across the channel.

 

Men of the British Expeditionary Force safely arrive home after their fight in Flanders on June 6, 1940. More than 330,000 soldiers were rescued from Dunkirk in the mission code-named Operation Dynamo.

 

Aftermath of the British retreat in Flanders, Belgium on July 31, 1940. English soldiers lie dead beside their vehicles.

 

English and French prisoners of war sit near railroad tracks somewhere in Belgium in 1940.

 

German troops parade in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 20, 1940 to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.

 

Women waving Union Jacks greet passing soldiers, all Canadians, as they march from the docks after disembarking in Britain on June 18, 1940.

 

Some of the 350 refugee British children who arrived in New York City on July 8, 1940, aboard the British liner Samaria. They were the first large contingent of English children sent from the isles to be free of the impending German invasion.

 

German troops walk down a deserted street in Luxembourg, on May 21, 1940, with rifles, pistols and grenades ready to protect themselves.

 

Refugees leave their ruined town in Belgium, after it had been bombed by the Germans, carrying what little of their personal belongings they managed to salvage, on May 19, 1940.

 

A crowd of women, children and soldiers of the German Wehrmacht give the Nazi salute on June 19, 1940, at an unknown location in Germany.

 

An Allied soldier thrusts the plunger of an explosive mechanism that will blast a bridge to delay the German advance, in the Leuven region of Belgium, on June 1, 1940, before this area fell to the Germans.

 

A tandem bicycle carries a whole Belgian family of four with some of their belongings strapped to their backs, as they flee from the advancing Germans into France, on June 14, 1940.

 

Adolf Hitler poses in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background, one day after the formal capitulation of France, on June 23, 1940. He is accompanied by Albert Speer, German Reichsminister of armaments and Hitler’s chief architect, left, and Arno Breker, professor of visual arts in Berlin and Hitler’s favorite sculptor, right. An unknown cameraman seen in the foreground is filming the event. 

 

French destroyer Mogador, in flames after being shelled during the British attack on Mers-el-Kebir, French Algeria, on July 3, 1940. After France signed an armistice with Germany, the British government moved to destroy what it could of the French Navy, trying to prevent the ships from falling into German hands. Several ships were badly damaged, one sunk, and 1,297 French sailors were killed in the attack.

 

German mortars are set in position under cliffs on the French side of the English Channel, at Fecamp, France, in 1940, as Germany occupied France and the Low Countries.

 

A German soldier stands in the tower of the cathedral, gazing down upon the captured French city of Strasbourg on July 15, 1940. Adolf Hitler visited the city in June of 1940, declaring plans for the Strasbourg Cathedral, stating that it should become a “national sanctuary of the German people”.