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It was a vision of hell. More than 400,000 men huddled on the beaches outside Dunkirk in May 1940, while the Messerschmitts and Stuka dive-bombers of the Luftwaffe bombed and strafed them at will.

The air was thick with bullets, shrapnel and a pall of black smoke from the burning wrecks of warships in the harbour.

Miraculously, Britain’s exhausted army was plucked to safety by an armada of ‘little ships’ – trawlers, motor cruisers, yachts and even a canoe – allowing our defeated soldiers to fight another day.

Now, Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Dunkirk, opening this week, chillingly recreates the rescue, Operation Dynamo – using 6,000 extras, real warships, Spitfires and the last remaining ‘little ships’.

The film was inspired by a remarkable book by historian Joshua Levine – Forgotten Voices Of Dunkirk. Here, in our exclusive extract, are the authentic voices of the men who really were there…

The first months of the conflict brought an artificial calm. But this Phoney War came to a shattering end on May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), meanwhile, was advancing into Belgium – and into Hitler’s trap. German Panzer divisions used speed and surprise to encircle the BEF, forcing a desperate retreat to the small coastal port of Dunkirk, where hundreds of thousands of men huddled in the dunes above the beach. It was safer there, because the bombs of the terrifying Stukas – fitted with wailing ‘Jericho’s Trumpet’ sirens designed to inspire terror – would plunge into the soft sand before exploding.

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Dunkirk, opening this week, chillingly recreates the rescue, Operation Dynamo (pictured is Fionn Whitehead in a scene from the film)

Pictured are the British BEF and French troops waiting for evacuation in Dunkirk in June 1940

Major William Reeves

3rd Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment

Dunkirk was noise and chaos. There was black smoke blowing over the place, there were aeroplanes coming over and dropping bombs. Huge crowds of people were moving towards the docks, thousands of soldiers were on the beach.

Sergeant Leonard Howard

210 Field Company, Royal Engineers

We abandoned our transport, and the boys and I walked and ran. We were being shot and mortared. We had to cross a sunken road and were suffering a terrific amount of casualties from machine-gun fire. A good friend of mine – George Parks – stood up and threw a grenade through the loophole of a pillbox, saying: ‘How’s that for a cricket throw?’ He got the Military Medal for that. It was one of the bravest things I ever saw.

Captain (Acting) Humphrey ‘Bala’ Bredin

2nd Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles

You saw the most extraordinary sights. Little groups of British soldiers sitting on the sand as though they were at a holiday resort, playing cards while Messerschmitts flew up and down. You could see the bullets hitting the sand and these soldiers were saying ‘He can’t shoot very straight!’ when the bullets had missed them by a few yards.

Lance Sergeant Robert Green

2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment

A German aircraft turned and headed straight down towards us. I instinctively went to earth at the side of the wall and heard a terrific clatter above my head and lots of swearing. I thought the machine-gun fire must be hitting the top, but it was a bloke with a Bren gun, firing at this aircraft, swearing his head off.

The film tackles the controversy of the RAF’s role in Dunkirk. At the time, troops under near-constant attack from the Luftwaffe angrily accused the RAF of abandoning them, while pilots – accurately, as history now recalls – protested that the operation would never have succeeded without the battles waged further behind the German lines by Spitfires and Hurricanes. Here are some conflicting but impassioned statements from both sides of the argument.

Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard and Fionn Whitehead, sitting on a beach during the movie Dunkirk

Sergeant Major Martin McLane

2nd Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

The RAF did a very poor job of defending us. The Germans were working in close co-operation. When they wanted support, they called in their dive-bombers and their fighters who strafed and bombed us. And what support did we have? We had no damn thing at all. Not a bloody thing. We were just left to God and good neighbours.

Flying Officer Harold Bird-Wilson

17 Squadron, RAF

I know that the Army had a very rough time of being bombed and strafed and they accused the fighter squadrons and the RAF of failing to support them. They said they never saw the RAF fighters over Dunkirk, which surprised us greatly, because we had two patrols over Dunkirk per squadron per day from dawn to dusk, whether we were actually over the town or inland, trying to intercept the enemy. We protected the beaches considerably, making continuous patrols throughout the hours of daylight.

Pilot Officer Hugh Dundas

616 Squadron, RAF

When we came back to Britain, Army people used to say: ‘Where the hell were you lot?’ Nobody tried to knock my block off, but there was hostility and criticism, and we took it hard because we had our losses and we certainly were there.’

Operation Dynamo, the most ambitious evacuation in military history, was organised in less than a week. The harbour was ablaze, so boats – more than 200 naval vessels and 850 civilian craft – were sent to collect men from the beaches east of the port under constant bombardment and air attack. The East Mole, a 1,600-yard breakwater, became the chief embarkation point. And on May 29, the armada of ‘little ships’ began arriving…

Weary soldiers make their way to the little ships waiting off the coast of Dunkirk

Ronald Tomlinson

Civilian fisherman – aboard the trawler Tankerton Towers

Halfway through a film, a flash came on to the screen: ‘Anybody in Ramsgate trawlers, please report to the Admiralty office at once.’ Somebody nudged me and said: ‘That means you!’ So I went to find out what it was all about.

I told them I was an engineer on the Tankerton Towers. ‘Could you let the crew know to be down here at 5.30am?’ I didn’t know anything about Dunkirk.

By the time we got aboard, there was steam blowing from the boiler, coal in the bunkers and two lieutenants waiting. The Navy had done all that during the night.

The lieutenants asked: ‘What have you got on board?’ We said: ‘Nothing.’ They said: ‘We’ll have to find something to give the boys a cup of tea when they come on board.’ We didn’t know what they were talking about.

Gerald Ashcroft

Civilian Sea Scout – aboard the motor yacht Sundowner

I noticed two naval officers talking to Commander Lightoller aboard the Sundowner before he asked me to strip her out because the boat had been commandeered to go to Dunkirk.

I asked if he wanted me to come with him. I’d been with the Sea Scouts for a number of years. He said: ‘I’ll warn you – it’s not going to be a pleasure cruise but if you’d like to come with us, we’d be pleased to have you.’ We moved out the next morning, and fell in with several yachts on the way down the Thames.

As we got near to the French coast, we attracted the attention of a Stuka. Commander Lightoller stood up in the bow. He kept his eye on the Stuka until the last second – then he sung out to me ‘Hard a-port!’ and we turned very sharply. The bomb landed on our starboard side.

The Stuka came round for another go. Lightoller watched him coming down and said: ‘Hard a-starboard!’ Round we went, and the bomb landed a very short distance away.

A fighter came at us astern. He was watching for that moment and sung out to go hard a-port and the bullets came flying down to the side.

Lieutenant Commander John McBeath

Royal Navy – Commanding Officer, HMS Venomous

One came across lots of these small boats with a dozen or so soldiers on board, heading resolutely back for England.

One quite often offered to take their crews of soldiers off them so that they could go back for another load, and they said, ‘No fear! We’ve got our 12 pongos, and we’re going back to England! You go and get your own!’

Meanwhile, back on the beaches of Dunkirk, hundreds of thousands sought refuge from the Luftwaffe in the dunes…

Captain Anthony Rhodes

253 Field Company, Royal Engineers

Towards early morning, great queues formed to go to the water’s edge where at about four o’clock, out of the darkness, we saw boats coming in. Where they came in, there was a little nucleus of men and a great queue running from the dunes behind, perhaps a quarter of a mile long. Nobody told us what to do, but it seemed the decent thing to get into the queue and not to try to jump it. At the head of each little nucleus, there was a naval officer.

When we were halfway up our queue, the bombing started and one man ran out of place to the head of the queue. The naval officer turned on him, and I heard him say: ‘Go back to the place you’ve come from, or I’ll shoot you!’

He said it very loudly for everybody to hear, and that man went back with his tail between his legs.

British soldiers fight a rearguard action during the evacuation at Dunkirk, shooting rifles at attacking aircraft

Sergeant Leonard Howard

210 Field Company, Royal Engineers

I saw British troops shoot other British troops. On one occasion a small boat came in and they piled aboard it to such a degree that it was in danger of capsizing. The chap in charge of this boat decided that unless he took some action it would, so he shot a hanger-on at the back of the boat through the head.

It probably saved those chaps on the boat – but I hoped I would never be called upon to do that. I think he did the right thing, but it was awful to see.

Able Seaman Ian Nethercott

Royal Navy, Anti-Aircraft Rating 3rd Class – served aboard HMS Keith

When we first tied up alongside the Mole, we went past a troopship lying on the bottom, burnt out. Next, there was a destroyer which was burnt out, and then there was a gap in the Mole for about 100 yards.

Then there were trawlers and sweepers, also burnt out. In the middle section, the Mole had been shot away and they’d got a load of planks which the troops had to walk over in single file.

Captain Anthony Rhodes

253 Field Company, Royal Engineers

We got to the head of the queue towards 3am. The bombing got very intense and the people at the front of the queues disappeared, and we found ourselves pretty alone. We were just about to toddle back to the town, when suddenly, out of the darkness loomed a rowing boat with a couple of sailors aboard.

They weren’t Navy – they were chaps from Grimsby. They said: ‘We’ve come from the fishing vessel out there. Scramble aboard!’ We had to go in the water, so we took off our clothes. An hour later, we were transferred to a destroyer.

Very shortly an officer came round and said: ‘We shall now be sailing for Blighty!’

Soldiers are seen during Operation Dynamo in 1940. Miraculously, Britain’s exhausted army was plucked to safety by an armada of ‘little ships’ – trawlers, motor cruisers, yachts and even a canoe

Corporal Charles ‘Bert’ Nash

2nd Bulk Petrol Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps

We spent 12 hours going backwards and forwards with stretcher cases, along what was left of the Mole. All of a sudden a redcap [Military Policeman] shouted: ‘Here! We’ve got room for a few more!’ I clambered aboard a fishing smack.

There were about 100 of us aboard, and we started back to England. I found out afterwards that two who didn’t volunteer [climb aboard] never made it.

Private Albert Dance

Rifle Brigade

The order came along that there wouldn’t be any more boats. I headed north-east towards De Panne, clambered on a wooden jetty and heard English voices – a little sailing yacht with two men aboard. I leapt down and knocked myself right out. The next thing I remember was someone saying: ‘Do you want to see the white cliffs of Dover?’ And there they were.

Miraculously, no fewer than 338,000 Allied troops were landed safely on Britain’s South Coast between May 26 and June 5, 1940, turning abject defeat into a victory – of sorts. Through courage and bravery, complete disaster, at least, had been averted and the evacuation allowed Britain to fight on through the dark early years of the war. No wonder the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ is such a part of our national story.

• Forgotten Voices Of Dunkirk, by Joshua Levine, is published by Ebury Press, priced £9.99. Offer price £7.49 (25 per cent discount) until July 23. Order at mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640 – p&p is free on orders over £15.