The fall of France had not been anticipated in Government planning and the encirclement of a large part of the British Expeditionary Force into the Dunkirk pocket resulted in a hasty evacuation of that part of the B.E.F following the abandonment of their equipment. The parlous state of affairs "no arms, no transport, no equipment" in the face of the threat of imminent invasion of Britain by Nazi forces was recorded by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke in his diary entries of the 1/2 July 1940.
The fall of France caught the government off guard, and the encirclement of a significant portion of the British Expeditionary Force within the Dunkirk pocket led to a hasty evacuation of that part of the B.E.F after they abandoned their equipment. The dire situation, as described by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, on July 1/2, 1940, was "no arms, no transport, no equipment" in light of the imminent threat of Nazi invasion of Britain.