Matthew Richardson is Curator of Social History at Manx National Heritage. He has a long term interest in military history, in particular the First and Second World Wars. This is his eleventh book for Pen & Sword, and is the culmination of many years of study and research into the role of the Isle of Man between 1939 and 1945\. He is fortunate enough to have met and spoken with many of the contributors whose words appear in this book.

In this compelling new study of the disastrous 1940 campaign in France and Flanders, Matthew Richardson reconstructs in vivid detail the British armys defeat as it was experienced by the soldiers of a single battalion, the 2nd/5th Leicesters. These men typified the ill-equipped, under-trained British battalions that faced the blitzkrieg and the might of Hitler's legions. They were thrown into a series of desperate, one-sided engagements that resulted in a humiliating retreat, then evacuation from Dunkirk. This is their story.