In the introduction to each of the four episodes in this miniseries, narrator Idris Elba explains that his discovery that one of his ancestors had played a role in World War II, a role about which he had known nothing, inspired him to develop this project. His parents were from two former British African colonies, Sierra Leone and Ghana. He himself was born in England. The third installment in this miniseries, mistakenly entitled Dunkirk, deals with four soldiers from the former British colony of India, and is the only non-United States-centered episode of the four. So maybe the miniseries started with this episode, which is something of an outlier.
First, let's get rid of the title. Another part of the general introduction at the start of each episode says that the series centers on four of the great battles of the War. Dunkirk was certainly an important World War II battle. But less than 5 minutes of this episode takes place at Dunkirk. As explained above, it recounts the stories of four Indian soldiers who, along with their Indian troops, are ordered to make for Dunkirk, on the English Channel, so they can be shipped back to England once the British realize that the Germans are about to overrun France. (There is NO MENTION of the over 100,000 French troops on the beach at Dunkirk who were left there by the British as they evacuated their own troops. The French troops where therefore captured by the Germans and spent at least four years in German POW camps.)
For various reasons, those four Indian soldiers and their Indian fellows can't make it to Dunkirk as ordered. Two head south to Switzerland and never see Dunkirk. The other two, after playing a lot of hide and seek with the Germans across Northern France, do finally get there. But they are there for only a very few minutes of this film before they are shipped off to England.
So Dunkirk is a completely misleading title for this episode. If you want to learn about that battle, there are lots of good books you can read. And, of course, there is Christopher Nolan's film.
What we learn about those four Indian soldiers, through their own writings and the recollections of their families, is indeed interesting. Whether it was unknown in England and/or India as this episode asserts I have no way of knowing, because I don't study the British involvement in the war. The fact that the narration says so doesn't mean anything to me. The narration also said that Dorie Miller's heroic contributions during the attack on Pearl Harbor were unknown until discovered by the producers of this series, and that is hogwash, as I explained in my review of the Pearl Harbor episode.
So, this episode can be of interest to American viewers. But whether it is any more revelatory than the two previous episodes I have no way of telling, and no reason to believe.
I'm looking forward to the last installment, The Battle of the Bulge, which I assume will take us back to American contributions to the war and the role of African Americans.
