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

The King was right: the evacuation was going far better than had been first
hoped – more than 33,000 had been lifted from the mole alone the previous
day – and was continuing all that morning. Helping them once again was
the weather. From dawn, a fog and sea mist had rolled in over the Flanders
coast and, with the still heavy smoke, made it impossible for the Luftwaffe
to see any targets at all. Twice formations of Stukas took off and on both
occasions were forced to return.
There was nothing to stop the ground troops pressing forward, however,
although the Germans attacking the bridgehead were finding it hard going.
The panzers had brought chaos with their speed and drive, and would have
continued to do so had they sped up the coast behind the enemy’s backs.
But now they were facing determined troops well dug-in behind a
considerable water obstacle, and the job of spearheading the attack had
necessarily been handed back to the infantry with the artillery to help, just
as it had been when they crossed the Meuse two weeks before. The gunners
were doing a magnificent job, but many of the shells were falling in the
waterlogged fields around the enemy positions and were thus not terribly
effective. Mortars and small-arms fire were keeping up the pressure and
night patrols were probing for weak spots, but this was old-fashioned
attritional warfare. And it took time to wear the enemy down.
At OKH Headquarters, they were still livid about the missed
opportunity of a few days before. Von Brauchitsch was in a foul mood,
despite the remarkable victory his men would soon achieve. ‘We lost time,’
grumbled Halder, ‘and so the pocket would have been closed at the coast if
only our armour had not been held back. As it is, the bad weather has
grounded our air force and now we must stand by and watch how countless
thousands of the enemy are getting away to England right under our noses.’
Nor was it helping that both Army Groups A and B were involved in the
operation against the Dunkirk bridgehead, which, in the big scheme of
things, was too small an area for two such large military machines to
operate. Resentment was brewing. There was anger that the Luftwaffe could
not do more, while, within Army Group A, the Fourth Army believed
Panzer Group Kleist was not attacking hard enough, and that Army Group
B was expecting Army Group A to do the lion’s share of the fighting.
Panzer Group Kleist, meanwhile, complained to the Fourth Army that its
panzers were ill-suited to the task. When its 20th Motorized Division began