- Merchant Seaman: It may be a phoney war to you, but it's not to all the blokes at sea. Never has been.
- Soldier on beach:: I don't want to die.
- Another soldier on beach: You might have to.
- Soldier on beach:: I don't want to die.
- Another soldier on beach: Shut up! You might bloody have to.
- Another soldier on beach: Hey, Corp, seen this?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: [Looks at a German propaganda map showing the Allies trapped and urging them to surrender, then hands it back to the soldier] Well, you know what you can do with that, don't you?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: What about all of this?
- Charles Foreman: Stupidity. Everybody saying that war was so terrible it couldn't happen again. And shoving our heads in the sand, like a lot of ostriches. Well, the Germans didn't think that way. To them, war meant guns or butter. They chose guns. We chose butter. No, you can't blame the Army. They had what we gave them - last war weapons, last war methods. This is the result.
- Narrator: Dunkirk was a great defeat, and a great miracle. It proved, if it proved anything, that we were alone but undivided. No longer were there fighting men and civilians. There were only people. A nation had been made whole.
- Barlow: [after Luftwaffe planes have strafed a road with fleeing civilians] That's murder. Sheer murder. I hope somebody knows what they're doing.
- Battery Sergeant Major: Corporal - where do you think you're going with that heap?
- Private Mike Russell: [sotto voce] Home sweet home!
- Battery Sergeant Major: Stand to attention when I'm speaking to you. Alright don't tell me, don't tell me,
- [sarcastically]
- Battery Sergeant Major: you got left behind when your unit pulled out. You've been astray and it's not your fault.
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: Yeah, that's right Sergeant Major...
- Battery Sergeant Major: You're a shower!
- John Holden: [the staff are listening to 'Germany Calling'] Don't tell me you listen to Haw-Haw's twaddle?
- Worker Who Speaks to Holden: How d'you know it's twaddle?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: I never wanted the blasted stripes in the first place!
- Private Mike Russell: Too late now Tubby - you're stuck with them.
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: Who are you? What's your mob?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: B Company, Wiltshires, 13th Brigade.
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: Where's your unit?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: That's what we want to know - thought perhaps you could help.
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: Who was top of the league this year?
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: Top of the league? Darned if I know.
- Barlow: There was no league held this year.
- Private Mike Russell: Everton won it last year.
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: You'll do.
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: He thinks we're ruddy Fifth Column!
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: Well you can't be too careful these days!
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: Do we look like Fifth Column?
- Don R - Dispatch Rider: No you don't - and neither do they. Blasted Jerries everywhere.
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: Are you alright Mike?
- Private Mike Russell: Of course I'm alright.
- Corporal 'Tubby' Binns: What are you doing then?
- Private Mike Russell: I'm trying to get out of this bloody hedge.