As this nation commemorates the 80th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June, let us remember that there would have been no D-Day, without God’s deliverance at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation four years earlier. Shamefully today, neither church nor nation gives much thought to this miracle of deliverance.
It was on 26 May 1940 that a National Day of Prayer was called by King George VI at the time of the Dunkirk crisis. 350,000 Allied troops were trapped across the Channel by the advancing German army and if they weren’t rescued, then the UK would have been invaded. Britain was on the verge of total defeat and panic was beginning to set in.
During the 1930s, all the warning signs of an impending war had been ignored by successive governments in both Britain and Europe. Many people argued that such a war would never happen, that cast-iron alliances had now been formed between nations and common sense would prevail. Indeed, there was an almost hypnotic denial of these warning signs. Those like Churchill who repeatedly warned of a coming storm were mocked and ignored.