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The Dunkirk Memorial honours the memory of the 4,528 soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force from 110 different units who died during the 1940 campaign and have no known grave. Their names are engraved here, for all eternity, in Portland stone, on pillars that run like the columns of a cloister. The main avenue leads to the monumental chapel, whose engraved bay window depicts the evacuation.
Between 10 May and 4 June 1940, the British Expeditionary Force lost 68,000 men in France and Belgium, either missing, killed or captured, as well as an enormous amount of equipment. But the farsightedness and stubbornness of their commander, General Gort, enabled the most of the professional army to be preserved, giving rise to the "Dunkirk Spirit" that carried the will to fight and eradicate Nazism.
Queen Mother Elizabeth inaugurated this memorial site in 1957. Lastly, the monument adjoins a cemetery containing 810 Second World War graves, most of which are those of soldiers who fell in May-June 1940 during the defence of the Dunkirk perimeter and the evacuation.
Route de Furnes, 59140 Dunkerque