In 1940, as the last Allied soldier was captured in Dunkirk, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill vowed his forces 'shall never surrender', warning of an impending invasion. His moving speech to Parliament came at the end of a 10-day failed operation to bring back hundreds of thousands of retreating allied troops trapped by the German Army. Many French troops remained to hold the perimeter and were captured, but the Luftwaffe had prevented a flotilla from Southern England pulling of a daring rescue mission. Britain now faced Hitler without the majority of the British Expeditionary Force, and a huge loss of heavy armaments that were seized in the Battle of France.