The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

18
Dunkirk: The Beginning
‘WE NOW ARE receiving very little news,’ jotted Daidie Penna on 27 May,
‘which may be a good thing.’ She also wondered – with considerable
perceptiveness – why the Germans appeared not to have made good use of
their ‘gap’. ‘I should have thought they would have rushed troops through
it,’ she added, ‘as fast as they could get them there.’
Very few people knew the true extent of the disaster, not even Harold
Nicolson, who that morning at the Ministry of Information was also
commenting on the paucity of news. He was soon put in the picture,
however, when at a meeting at the Ministry later on that day he heard about
the situation in France from General Mason-Macfarlane, just back from
BEF Headquarters having commanded Macforce. ‘Macfarlane tells us in
blunt language that the BEF are now surrounded,’ noted Harold, ‘and that a
disaster is bound to take place.’ Macfarlane, as Gort’s emissary, wanted the
Ministry of Information to know that it was the Belgians deserting them –
which was deeply unfair – and the lack of French fight that had caused the
problems, and urged them to save the reputation of the British army by
putting the blame on their allies instead. Harold and his colleagues called
for their boss and Duff Cooper then explained that to take that tack with the
French would be to shatter any hope of maintaining the alliance. The policy
would be to prepare the public for the shock by not giving away too much
information to the Germans.
This was further agreed upon at the late Cabinet that night, which Duff
Cooper attended. He wanted the public to know something of the
seriousness of the situation but Churchill was anxious that there should not
be any detailed statement about the evacuation. In this moment of extreme
crisis, the policy of openness was, for the moment, to be put to one side.
Communications – or the lack of them – had once again got the better of the
Allies in their increasingly fragile pocket in Flanders. For much of the
night, Gort and Pownall had been trying to speak with Blanchard to discuss
the evacuation and the defence of the narrow corridor. Every time they