Includes bibliographical references (p. [645]-660) and index

1. Moment of Truth -- 2. The BEF Arrives in France -- 3. The Mechelen Affair -- 4. The Final Warning -- 5. The Matador's Cloak -- 6. Charging Bull -- 7. Into Battle -- 8. Over the River Meuse -- 9. Flight -- 10. Battle of the Bulge -- 11. Lambs to the Slaughter -- 12. The Arras Counter-Attack -- 13. We Stand and Fight -- 14. Escape from Arras -- 15. Boulogne and the Useless Mouths -- 16. Evacuation of Boulogne -- 17. Calais and the French Complaint -- 18. Calais -- Fight to the Finish -- 19. Lucky Breaks -- 20. Siege at Cassel -- 21. Surrounded at Le Paradis -- 22. Massacre at Le Paradis -- 23. Manhunt -- 24. Crisis in the North -- 25. Up the Glosters -- 26. Massacre at Wormhout -- 27. Escape to Dunkirk -- 28. The Dunkirk Armada -- 29. Beached -- 30. Entente Cordiale -- 31. Evacuation -- 32. Rearguard -- 33. Mission Accomplished -- 34. Payback -- 35. Sacrifice of the 51st Highland Division -- 36. The Sinking of the Lancastria

The rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades, and Captain Marcus Ervine-Andrews VC who single-handedly held back a German attack on the Dunkirk perimeter thereby allowing the British line to form up behind him. Told to stand and fight to the last man, these brave few battalions fought in whatever manner they could to buy precious time for the evacuation. Outnumbered and outgunned, they launched spectacular and heroic attacks time and again, despite ferocious fighting and the knowledge that for many only capture or death would end their struggle