The Dunkirk Evacuation, also known as the Dunkirk Miracle, is one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War. In the face of overwhelming German advance, between 26 May and 4 June 1940, 366,162 Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk. Some 800 boats had been involved in the gigantic rescue operation, not just naval destroyers and other large vessels, but also hundreds of the now so-called ‘little ships of Dunkirk’, which had risen to the occasion, ranging from pleasure and fishing crafts to merchant vessels.

Although this retreat could be seen as a defeat for the Allied forces, it was also recognised it as one of the greatest feats of the war, notably by the artist Richard Eurich. He was one of the artists commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee, which had been set up at the beginning of the war to ‘secure pictures of artistic worth likely to be of historic interest as war records for future generations’. In addition to propaganda purposes and posterity, the Committee aimed to keep British artists in employment during wartime. The painting Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940 was used by the Navy as its Christmas card for 1940.