Middle School
Worksheets
Remembering D-Day
June
Reading Comprehension for June 6
You might say it began at Dunkirk on the shores of France, where more than 300,000 British and French soldiers were cornered with their backs to the English Channel. You might think it would have been easy enough for them to escape in troop ships, but it was not. The water was too shallow for ships and too deep for the men.
Escape routes by land were cut off, and the German forces were sure that they could soon wipe out both the British and French armies in one fell swoop. All seemed lost until a desperate call went out to the British public, "Come and help!" More than 600 private vessels responded - fishing boats, life boats, and pleasure boats of all kinds, along with small ships. They sailed across the Channel close to shore where the troop carriers could not go. They braved bombs and enemy fire over the next nine days from May 27-June 4, 1940. They rescued more than 300,000 men who would have otherwise died, and in doing so, they denied Germany an early victory. Together they pulled off the "Miracle at Dunkirk."
The war dragged on, on many fronts, but it wasn't until four years later, on June 5, 1944, that the Allies were ready to take back the beaches of Normandy. This time, they had help from North Americans.
