MMP Books has done a series of photo essays in the 'Camera On' series. Prior to this one it has been mostly equipment. This book is unique in the series that it looks at the aftermath of a battle, that being the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940.

These photos have all come from either German archives or personal German collections and for me, they were all images I have not seen before. Many of these were taken the day after the evacuation when the German army was able to access the beaches and the main part of the town.

To say these images are incredible would be a bit of an understatement. The detritus of war is littered all over the place. Dunkirk itself was pretty much bombed out by both German bombs and by shell fire from the advancing army. British and French equipment littered the beaches and town while the port and off shore were sunken ships being relentlessly assaulted by the tides.

The book is divided into sections with the first section being the various ships and boats. Some of these subjects were photographed by different folks over a period of time showing their deterioration to both the sea and by German arms practice. Next are the beaches with its mass of abandon vehicles. Many of these were able to be resurrected and served the Germans as long as they could get parts. Remarkable in this section were the lines of trucks leading off into the water over which soldiers clambered on their way to waiting boats.

Then we see the devastation in town with bombed and burned out buildings of all sorts. Among those buildings were British and French guns, tanks and other vehicles. Finally we get two smaller sections one with downed aircraft and another showing French and British soldiers taken prisoner.

In all it is a poignant look at the aftermath of one of the most widely known retreats of modern warfare. For those who want something a bit different from the usual, I most highly recommend this one.

October 2017

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Many thanks to www.mmpbooks.com for providing the review copy. You can get this book today at this link.

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