\"This is the first book to give a full account of the events that took place in Dunkirk between 1939 and 1945. The battle of May/June 1940, including the evacuation by sea of the British Expeditionary Force, together with some French units, and the siege of Dunkirk that lasted from September 1944 until May 1945 are the highlights of this story. Although soberly recounted, the main purpose of this book is to provide the reader, whether from Dunkirk or not, with precise information. The period of the \"Phoney War,\" and especially the occupation, hold an inportant place in this evocation. Who else but the Dunkirk journalist, Serge Blanckaert, was in a better position to interview numerous witnesses of those events, and to piece together what the reality of daily life was like during those dark years? Following the devastation of the bombing and successive waves of evacuees, Dunkirk became a ghost town, with a strange destiny: a strategic point in 1940, where the Battle of Flanders that began on May 10th ended, transformed it into a heap of rubble; Dunkirk was occupied by the Germans longer than any other French town, and was finally liberated on May 9th, 1945. Why did the German garrison, entrenched at Dunkirk, have the advantage of the truce, while the Allies could have re-taken the town without any difficulty? Serge Blackaert offers an answer to this question, which as a matter of fact has never been officially asked\"--