Dunkirk
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50 free Dunkirk trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In the last days of May 1940 a beaten army stood with its back to the sea, and almost nobody in London expected to see most of it again. What happened next became one of the best-known stories of the Second World War: a rescue so unlikely that the name of a small French port turned into a byword for pulling together in a crisis. This quiz follows the whole story. It starts with the German breakthrough and the order that stopped the tanks, moves to the naval officers who ran the rescue and the warships, ferries, lifeboats and pleasure craft that carried it out, and ends with the men left behind, the later evacuations and the films and books that keep the memory alive. It is written for history fans, students revising the war and teachers who want a ready-made round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing more than the legend.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01C. H. Lightoller, who sailed his yacht Sundowner to Dunkirk, had been the senior surviving officer of which liner?
Titanic
Titanic's second officer was 66 and retired when he crossed the Channel with his eldest son and a teenage Sea Scout. They brought more than 120 soldiers home in one trip.
Q 02Planners hoped to lift 45,000 troops from Dunkirk in two days; roughly how many were rescued in the end?
About 338,000
About 338,000 Allied soldiers reached England in little over a week, more than seven times the hoped-for figure. Only 7,669 got away on the first day.
Q 03Which English king, short of money, sold the port of Dunkirk to Louis XIV of France in 1662?
Charles II
Charles II had held the town for only two years after his Restoration and judged it a costly liability. Louis XIV, his cousin, paid five million livres for it.
Q 04At De Panne and nearby beaches, troops waiting to leave Dunkirk built makeshift piers at low tide from what?
Abandoned vehicles
Abandoned vehicles were driven onto the sand in rows, anchored with sandbags and joined by wooden walkways. Men could then walk out to the boats instead of wading.
Q 05Among the troops rescued from Dunkirk were unarmed Indian soldiers of Force K-6, who handled which animals?
Mules
Mules and their handlers had come to France with the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Three of the four units got away from the coast, and one was captured.
Q 06Which director told the Dunkirk story from land, sea and air in a 2017 film featuring Tom Hardy and Harry Styles?
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan began filming in Dunkirk itself, timed to match the dates of the real evacuation. His fleet included twenty of the original little ships, piloted by their owners.
Q 07Massey Shaw, which rescued over 500 troops from the Dunkirk beaches, served London as what kind of vessel?
A fireboat
A fireboat built for the London Fire Brigade, Massey Shaw crossed with a volunteer crew of firemen and made three trips. She went on to fight the fires of the Blitz.
Q 08Which 2007 film of an Ian McEwan novel features an acclaimed five-minute tracking shot of the Dunkirk seafront?
Atonement
Atonement captured the scene in one unbroken Steadicam take on the seafront at Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. The crew kept the third attempt.
Q 09Where did most of the soldiers rescued from Dunkirk in 1940 actually board their ships home?
The east mole
The east mole, a breakwater reaching nearly a mile out to sea, was never designed for docking ships. Almost 200,000 men still left along it.
Q 10As the Dunkirk crisis grew, King George VI went to Westminster Abbey on 26 May 1940 for a national day of what?
Prayer
Prayer was offered in churches and synagogues across Britain that Sunday, with the Archbishop of Canterbury leading the Abbey service. It told the public how grave things were.
Q 11What code name was given to the Dunkirk evacuation, which Churchill ordered to begin on the evening of 26 May 1940?
Operation Dynamo
Operation Dynamo is often said to be named after an old generator room at naval headquarters, though no evidence supports the story. It was expected to last two days.
Q 12Which vice admiral masterminded the Dunkirk evacuation and went on to command the naval forces on D-Day?
Bertram Ramsay
Bertram Ramsay had been coaxed out of retirement only a year before the rescue. He was killed in a plane crash near Paris in January 1945, months before the war in Europe ended.
Q 13Which Victoria Cross holder commanded the British Expeditionary Force in France and ordered its retreat to Dunkirk?
Q 21Which type of Royal Navy warship, 39 of which served at Dunkirk, could carry about 900 soldiers on each trip?
Destroyers
Destroyers, not the famous little ships, did the heaviest lifting in the rescue. Six British ones were sunk, and many more limped home damaged.
Q 22Which paddle steamer, nicknamed the Heroine of Dunkirk, made a record seven round trips and rescued about 7,000 men?
Medway Queen
Medway Queen first sailed in 1924 and survived the war. Saved from the scrapyard, she later served as a nightclub on the Isle of Wight before enthusiasts began restoring her.
Q 23Fenella and King Orry, two ferries lost at Dunkirk in about a day, belonged to a steamship company from which island?
Isle of Man
Lord Gort
Lord Gort dropped a planned attack to the south on his own initiative and pulled his army back to the sea. He later served as Governor of Gibraltar and of Malta.
Q 14Which future field marshal commanded the British rearguard at Dunkirk and sailed only once his troops were away?
Harold Alexander
Harold Alexander left aboard HMS Venomous late on 2 June, once he was sure every British soldier had gone. He went on to lead Allied armies in North Africa and Italy.
Q 15Which German army group commander issued the order that halted the panzers short of Dunkirk on 23 May 1940?
Gerd von Rundstedt
Gerd von Rundstedt feared for his exposed flanks and wanted to save his tanks for the next phase of the campaign. Hitler endorsed the pause a day later, and it lasted three days.
Q 16Which Luftwaffe chief asked Hitler for the chance to destroy the Allied armies trapped at Dunkirk from the air?
Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring could not deliver on the boast. Poor weather kept his bombers away on some days, and RAF fighters flying from England contested the skies on the others.
Q 17Which German panzer general reported the British tank counter-attack near Arras in May 1940 as five divisions?
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel stopped the thick-skinned Matilda tanks by forming gun lines that included 88 mm anti-aircraft guns. One of them knocked out 24 tanks in a few minutes.
Q 18Which king surrendered the Belgian Army in late May 1940, opening a gap in the Allied line beside Dunkirk?
Leopold III
Leopold III acted without consulting his government, and the prime ministers of both Belgium and France condemned him. British divisions had to rush in to plug the hole.
Q 19Winston Churchill became prime minister on 10 May 1940, the day Germany attacked in the west, replacing whom?
Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain quit because Labour refused to serve under him, and he advised the King to send for Churchill. The new premier was 16 days into the job when the rescue began.
Q 20Beneath which English castle were the naval headquarters that directed the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940?
Dover
Dover Castle's cliff tunnels, dug as barracks during the Napoleonic Wars, became a wartime command centre and hospital. A statue of the admiral who ran the rescue stands outside them.
Isle of Man Steam Packet ships brought home 24,699 troops, about one in fourteen of everyone rescued. Eight of the company's vessels took part.
Q 24Tamzine, a fishing boat under 15 feet long and the smallest craft at Dunkirk, is preserved by which British institution?
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum staff care for the clinker-built spruce boat, made at Margate in 1937. She repeated her Channel crossing for the 25th anniversary in 1965.
Q 25Which British liner was bombed and sunk off Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940 during a later evacuation from France?
Lancastria
Lancastria went down with thousands of troops and civilians aboard, the largest loss of life in British maritime history. Churchill suppressed the news at the time.
Q 26The siren-fitted Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, which sank ships off Dunkirk, is better known by which name?
Stuka
Stuka is short for Sturzkampfflugzeug, which is simply German for dive bomber. The wailing sirens on its undercarriage were officially called noise devices.
Q 27Which Channel port did Brigadier Claude Nicholson's garrison defend until 26 May 1940, knowing escape was impossible?
Calais
Calais fell on the day the Dunkirk rescue began. Churchill later credited its stand with buying time for the army, a claim the German general Heinz Guderian disputed.
Q 28At which French city did surrounded First Army troops hold off seven German divisions until 31 May 1940?
Lille
Lille's defenders gave up only when food and ammunition ran out. The Germans granted them the honours of war in recognition of their bravery.
Q 29James Campbell Clouston, the pier master who kept troops moving at Dunkirk harbour, came from which country?
Canada
Canada was his birthplace: Clouston grew up in Montreal before joining the Royal Navy. He died at sea on 3 June 1940 when aircraft sank his launch on the way back to France.
Q 30Which Royal Navy captain, senior naval officer ashore at Dunkirk, searched the beaches with a megaphone for stragglers?
William Tennant
William Tennant landed with a naval party of eight officers and 160 men to run the embarkation. He stayed until the last British ships left on 2 June.