At 3am Churchill sends the following message to Adm Keyes:

Impart following to your friend [the King of the Belgians]. Presume he knows that the British and French are fighting their way to coast between Gravelines and Ostend inclusive, and that we propose to give fullest support from navy and air force during hazardous embarkation. What can we do for him? Certainly we cannot serve Belgium's cause by being hemmed in and staved out...

The British Prime Minister then sends Lord Gort a telegram worded:

...It is now necessary to tell the Belgians... Your personal contact with the King is desirable. Keyes will help. We are asking them to sacrifice themselves for us...

Both messages, however, arrive too late. Leopold III does not have time to consider them.

At 7am a military conference is held in Cassel to finalize plans for joint measures likely to strengthen the defense of the Dunkirk perimeter. Those present are Gen Koeltz, representing Gen Weygand, Gen Fagalde, commander of the units guarding the bridgehead perimeter, and Adm Abrial, who commands the maritime front under the code-name 'Adm North'. Lord Gort is not in attendance. He is content to send Gen Sir Ronald Adam, entrusting him with the task of organizing the bridgehead in collaboration with the French.

Gen Adam emphasizes the need to avoid traffic congestion within the perimeter. He tells Gen Fagalde that he has decided to allow no British transport north of the canal apart from ambulances and vehicles essential to tactics or supply. He asks Gen Fagalde to see that the French do the same. There is no agreement between the two commands on this point, however, because their aims are not identical, and Gen Adam is careful not to mention Lord Gort's latest telegram from the War Office. In addition, the British government is pressing Lord Gort to lose no time. A further telegram arrives during the morning and is quite explicit:

In case of smallest doubt, your sole task now is to evacuate to England mazimum of your forces possible.

Gen Spears records:

I had become convinced that Weygand and the French generally were intent upon holding the country round the harbor and defending it as a beleaguered fortress. This was completely contrary to the British conception, and was absurd. The garrison would be reduced by starvation and lack of ammunition in a very short time. It would be a new Metz, with but two differences: the siege wold be shorter and the responsible Bazaine would not be amongst the besieged.

These conflicting viewpoints are not dictates solely by different conceptions of strategy. They sprang from two irreconcilable psychological attitudes: that of a sea-faring race and that of a continental nation.

And Spears writes elsewhere in his book:

I suddenly realized with a clarity that had never before been vouchsafed me in all the long years I had worked with the French army, that to them the sea was much the same thing as an abyss of boiling pitch and brimstone, an insurmountable obstacle no army could venture over unless they were specially organized colonial expeditions endowed with incomprehensible powers...

To fall back to Dunkirk represented retiring into a fortress, which might be supplied by sea, but from which there was no retreat.

In an attempt to overcome this misconception on the part of the French, Spears explains that: 'behind the harbors lay God's own highway, the greatest, widest highway in the world, one that led everywhere; if the troops could get on to ships they would soon be in the line elsewhere.'

While the Cassel conference is going on, another Anglo-French meeting is being held in Dover. France is represented here by Admirals Odend'hal and Leclerc and Post-Captain Auphan; Britain by Admirals Ramsay and Somerville. The purpose of this meeting is to work out how the evacuation is to be carried out. It is decided that the two nations should pool their shipping resources. Yet Vice-Adm Ramsay, Flag Officer Commanding Dover, and Adm Abrial, commanding the northern sea front, will retain sole responsibility, each within his respective zone.

Lord Gort and Gen Blanchard are unrepresented at this meeting, 'They were tardily and inaccurately informed,' writes Baldies. 'Later, therefore, they were unable to give their troops the orders that would certainly have avoided friction when the time came for them to embark.'

Gen Fagalde loses no time in organizing the defense of the landward side. The bridgehead has been divided into halves:

A Sector (outer): Gen Barthélemy. Front demarcated by Gravelines, Watten, Cassel, Steenworde.

B Sector (inner): Gen Beaufrére. Front demarcated by the old Mardyck Canal, the Upper and Lower Colme Canals and the Franco-Belgian frontier position.

In Calais the remaining French forces holding out in the city's old fortress finally surrender and are marched off into captivity. The Germans take 20,000 prisoners in Calais, 3,500 of them British.

The German infantry units are now making dangerous progress west of Hazebrouck and come within four and a half miles of Dunkirk, southwest of Bergues. A nighmarish aerial attack in which 30,000 incendiary bombs are dropped turns Dunkirk into an inferno.

While engaging two of Guderian's three panzer divisions for about 3 days has enabled Gort's III Corps to establish a defensive line west of Dunkirk, preventing Guderian from breaking into the rear of the BEF as it retreats to that port.

Hitler's order to let the panzers resume comes too late to be translated into action on 5/26. Guderian gets his tanks moving early in the morning. The 1st Panzer Div pushes forward on his left flank, crosses the Aa Canal, and advances along the coast. The 2nd Panzer advances between the 1st Panzer and Arnèke. The 20th Motorized Div, supported by the SS Regimentt Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and the infantry regiment Grossdeutschland attacks between Arnèke and Cassel, with Wormhoudt as the immediate objective. Farther south 4 other panzer divisions attack toward Armentières and Kemmel in an attempt to cut off the BEF from Dunkirk. Hoth's 6th and 8th Panzer Divs advance between Cassel and Hazebrouck.

Farther south Rommel, who has been reinforced with the tanks of the 5th Panzer Brigade, is on the move again. Rommel's 7th Panzer Div, along with the 5th, cross the La Bassée Canal just east of Béthune. The objective is Armentières, where they hope to meet Bock's infantry advancing from the opposite direction and encircle the French 1st Army in and around Lille. Withour prior warning, British troops destroy the telephone exchange in Lille itself. This plays havoc with inter-Allied communnications. Now there are only two lines open to London. Units completely lose touch with one another and the work of the intelligence service is brought to a standstill.

Defending eastern side of Allied corridor against Bock's Army Group B are Gen Franklyn's British 5th Div and the 143rd Brigade of the 48th Div. In order to close the gap that had opened between the British and the Belgian forces, these units had travelled throughout the night from Arras to new positions along the Ypres-Comines canal line. The 5th Div realizes the importance of assignment. If they don't hold the Germans, the BEF would be doomed. They are attacked by 3 divisions of the German 6th Army: the 18th, 31st and 61st Infantry Divisions. By afternoon the Germans have managed to penetrate the 5th Division's front near Comines. Gort reacts by sending everything available: 2 brigades of the 50th Div, 3 battalion of the 1st Div and the 1st French Light Mech Div. These enable British defenders to plug the gap and stop the German advance for the time being. Fortunately the Germans fail to exploit the 6-mile gap between the British front at Ypres and the retiring Belgian flank at Zonnebeke. There they could have moved unimpeded to the sea only 20 miles to the north.

Around Lille French 1st Army is attacked from both sides of the narrow eastern end of Allied pocket. The 5th Panzer surges forward to capture Armentières, while the 7th Panzer swings eastward to meet German infantry advancing from the opposite direction. By the end of the day Rommel has broken through the Allied line and threatens to cut off the whole French 1st Army as well as 4 British division deployed in and around Lille.

The Germans are also threatening the western side of the Allied line being held by British 48th, 44th and 2nd Divs. In the morning the Germans attack the railway line extending west of Wormhoudt, Cassel and Hazebrouck, 3 towns about 10 to 15 miles south of Dunkirk, being defended by the 44th Div.

The British 2nd Infantry Div is responsible for the defense of a front 20 miles in length along the La Bassée Canal, against the combined strength of three and a half recently unleashed panzer divisions and supporting SS formations. At 3:30am the British soldiers are attacked by the 3rd, 4th, and 7th Panzer Divs, a brigade of the 5th Panzer Div and elements of the Totenkopf and Verfuguns SS. After an hour artillery bombardment the ground assault follows as both wings of the division are hit at the same time. The 2nd Div's 4th Brigade, consisting of the 1st Royal Scots, 2nd Royal Norfolks and 8th Lancashire Fusiliers, is attacked by the 4th Panzer Div and the SS Totenkopf. The 8th Lancashire Fusiliers are the first to be overrun. At 7:50am the commanding officer, Brig Warren, reports he is cut off from all but one of his companies. At 2:30pm he sends his last message that his Headquarters building is on fire and surrounded. Neither he nor the Lancashire Fusiliers are seen again. The Royal Norfolks lose their right composite company first being overwhelmed by German infantry supported by tanks. The Norfolks are steadily reduced in numbers and hemmed in by the advancing Germans. The 2nd Battalion, about 90 men, hold out in a large house in the village of Le Paradis, northwest of Béthune. Cut off and out of ammo at 5:15pm the commander, Maj Ryder, decides to surrender. They do so to the SS Totenkopf Div, who take them out and shoot them all with machine guns. There are two survivors, one reports the incident after war. After investigation Fritz Knoechlein, commander of Totenkopf's 2nd Infantry Regt, is brought before a British court-martial in Hamburg, convicted and hanged in 1949.

British troops have been pouring into Dunkirk since the day before. The task of evacuation will be difficult under bombing by the Luftwaffe. Only the outer harbor will be able to be be used. For a time it seems that the port will be put completely out of action.

As has been stated, Lord Gort was not conversant with the decisions taken at the Dover conference. For one thing, he does not know that shipping resources have been pooled. Since his troops are first to reach the port and the only ships in sight are those the British had alerted beforehand, he wants to embark his men at once. The French protest.

French Adm Jean Abrial is in charge of the defense of Dunkirk perimeter, an area 5 miles wide and stretching almost 30 miles in length from the Mardyck fortress on the western end of the perimeter to Nieuport on its eastern side. To defend this line he has the French XVI Corps with two divisions of the original 7th Army under Lt-Gen Maurice Fagalde. They will be reinforced by the BEF retreating into the perimeter. Fagalde meets with Gen Adam at 7am to work out the port's defenses. The French will be responsible for the sector west of Dunkirk as far as Gravelines and Bergues. The British will defend the area east of Bergues as far as Nieuport, about 25 miles east of Dunkirk. Most of the British front is behind the Bergues-Furnes-Nieuport canal line, an area which can floodedm, which has and now resembles a shallow lake with only roads standing above water. They are soon joined by Adm Abrial, Gen Blanchard, Gen Prioux and Gen Louis Koeltz, who represents Gen Weygand. Koeltz reads a message from Weygand directing the northern commanders to prepare to expand the Dunkirk bridgehead to Calais by launching a counterattack to relieve the troops defending there. Weygand did not know the troops there are about to surrender and had already been driven out of Gravelines.

There are two possible water evacuation routes. The short route, Route Z, is 39 sea miles long but will b under bombardment from German artillery. The longer route, Route Y, is 87 miles long. Another route develops through the course of the operation, Route X, 55 sea miles. The problem with the longer routes, not as many men can be evacuated and attacks from air and sea are more likely because of a longer time spent on the trips. At the end of the first day only 7,669 men are evacuated.

During the afternoon Capt William Tennant, chief staff officer to the First Sea Lord at the Admiralty, leaves Dover for Dunkirk. He crosses in the destroyer Wolfhound, taking with him a dozen officers, communications staff and 160 other seamen. He is to assume the responsibility for organizing the shore side of the evacuation. He approaches Dunkirk about 6pm and quickly finds facilities at the port unusable. The lock system for the 7 main dock basins of the harbor, designed to keep water at a sufficient level to float a sizable ship, is wrecked leaving most of the 5 miles of the port's quays unusable. The roads leading to the port aer blocked by rubble or licked by flames. The water mains are out and there is no way to fight fires. In addition, leaderless men are on the roads seeking refuge wherever they can escape the constant bomardment.

Only two hours after arriving, Tennant makes the decision to move the evacuation focus from the harbor to the beaches east of the city. He is informed by the British generals on hand that German tanks will probably arrive on the beaches within 36 hours. At 8pm Tennant sends a message to Adm Ramsey to send all available craft to the beaches east of Dunkirk and that evacuation tomorrow night is problematical. Ramsey responds immediately sending the cruiser Calcutta, 9 destroyers, 2 transports, 4 minesweepers, 17 drifters, and a number of skoots that were in the waters between these ports, working the beaches with their lifeboats.

Tennant, seeing that evacuation from the beaches would be a slow ponderous process. Two boats from a destroyer ferrying back and forth takes 6 to 8 hours to fill a destroyer to capacity. He resurveys the harbor area and decides the east mole might serve as a dock. During the evening he directs the Queen of the Channel to enter and tie up at the eastern mole. It is quickly and safely secured to stanchions. This experiment demonstrates that the east mole can serve as a major point of embarkation. In the end about 200,000 of the 338,000 troops would embark from this makeshift pier.

Meanwhile disaster has struck at the Belgians. Gen von Reichenau has managed to effect three further breakthroughs in their sector. 'The last to our reserves were in action,' writes Gen Michiels. 'We were left with only three weak regiments. Contact with the British were being maintained at our expense.'

The King decides that he had no choice but to capitulate.

At about 12:50pm, with the situation still worsening, he puts a call through to Lord Gort:

The King... wishes you to know that his army is greatly disheartened. It has been incessantly engaged for four days and subjected to intense air bombardment which the RAF have been unable to prevent. The knowledge that the Allied armies in this sector have been encircled and that the Germans have great superiority in the air has led his troops to belief that the position is almose hopeless... He wishes you to realize that he will be obliged to surrender before a debacle follows...

Churchill orders both Gort and Adm Keyes to break news of British withdrawal plans to King Léopold. The Belgians had already surmised that this was the plan. The British leaders are also to ask if the Belgians would sacrifice themselves for the good of the common cause, staying long enough to protect left flank of retreating BEF. Churchill also urges Keyes to 'make sure he [Léopold] leaves with you, by aeroplane, before it is too late.' He also adds a plum to entice the king to leave Belgium by authorizing Keyes to inform him that they would try to carry some Belgian divisions to France by sea.

The decision of the British to abandon Belgium was a major factor in Léopold's decision to surrender. At 2pm Gen Michiels tells the king that the army has done all it could. The only way to prevent massacre is to cease fighting immediately. At 3:30pm the King informs Adm Keyes, Gen Champon and other members of British and French military missions that he intends to ask for armistice at midnight. His message is received in London at 5:45pm and in Paris at 7pm. The King gives orders for an envoy to be sent to German GHQ. Anxious to 'do things properly', he notifies Gen Champon of this decision and hands over control of the French 60th Div, which had been on loan to him. Gen Champon manages to warn Gen Weygand by radio but is unable to get in touch with Gen Blanchard, whose command post has still not been located. At 3:45pm Léopold sends Gen Derousseaux, second-in-command at Belgian General Staff, to see Gen Reichenau to obtain German conditions for a cease-fire. Derousseaux returns at 10pm and informs the king that Hitler demands an unconditional surrender. The King responds, 'We shall lay down our arms and cease-fire at 4:00 tomorrow morning, May 28. At 12:20am a military surrender is signed by Gen von Reichenau, for the Wehrmacht, and Gen Desrousseaux, for the Belgian army. Belgium is out of the war.

At 1:30am notification of the German-Belgian armistice is telephoned to the French military mission. The latter has already left the Belgian GHQ heading to La Panne.

In London Sir John Dill is appointed Chief of General Staff in place of Gen Ironside, who has considered too much in favor of Anglo-French co-operation.