Watch Movies2Watch. At just before 7PM on May 26, 1940 Prime Minister Winston Churchill authorized ‘Operation Dynamo' to commence. By the time the operation came to an end on the night of June 4th, a total of 338,226 Belgian, French and British soldiers had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats. With rare historical archival footage from both the German and British sides, this is the real story.