Dunkirk 1940 The highly successful German invasion of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands began on 10 May 1940, and on 20 May Whitehall was assigned to the support of operations ashore as Allied forces retreated before the German offensive and required evacuation to the United Kingdom. On 26 May, she was assigned to Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France. She made two evacuation trips on 30 May, carrying 655 troops from Dunkirk to Dover on the first voyage and another 593 on the second. On 31 May, she joined Winchelsea and the destroyer Venomous in an evacuation run to Dunkirk and carried another 943 troops to Dover. On 1 June, after German aircraft sank the destroyer Basilisk in shallow water at La Panne, Belgium, Whitehall joined the fishing trawler Jolie Mascotte in rescuing 131 members of Basilisk's crew, destroyed the wreck of Basilisk with gunfire,[5][6] and then, after suffering damage in a German air attack, landed 571 personnel – a mix of evacuated troops and Basilisk survivors – at Dover, bringing to 2,762 the number of personnel she evacuated during Dynamo.[1] The ship was depicted in the Dover scene of the 1958 movie 'Dunkirk', starring John Mills. After Dynamo, Whitehall was under repair at Plymouth until 26 August 1940.[2] With her repairs complete, she transferred to Harwich to conduct patrols and convoy defence operations in the North Sea. In September 1940, she was transferred to Western Approaches Command for convoy escort duties in the Western Approaches as a part of the 8th Escort Group based at Liverpool. She joined the destroyer Sturdy, the minesweeper Jason, the corvettes Arabis, Coreopsis, Heliotrope, and Hibiscus, and three naval trawlers as the escort of Convoy HX 79[1] on 18 October 1940; the convoy came under sustained attack by five German submarines, which sank 12 of its merchant ships and damaged another without loss to themselves.[7] Upon arrival in the United Kingdom, Whitehall was reassigned to North Atlantic convoy duty, but later in May 1944 was selected to participate in Operation Neptune, the assault phase of the upcoming Allied invasion of Normandy, scheduled for early June 1944. Accordingly, she joined Rhododendron and the naval trawlers Scoma and Ulva at Milford Haven, Wales, to form Escort Group 139. The escort group escorted Convoy EBC 1, made up of preloaded stores coasters, from Milford Haven to the Isle of Wight on 3 June, then to the Solent on 5 June. On 7 June, the second day of the invasion, EBC 1 and its escort group proceeded to the invasion beaches. On 9 June, Whitehall's escort group was back at Milford Haven, and then began a cycle of escorting convoys carrying reinforcements and supplies to the beachheads until released from Operation Neptune on 27 June 1944.[1] ↑ Gardner, W. J. R., The Evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May-4 June 1940, London: Frank Cass, 2000, ISBN 0-7146-5120-6, pp. 90-91. Winser, John de D. (1999). B.E.F. Ships Before, At and After Dunkirk. Gravesend, Kent: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-91-6.