In the centre a large pall of smoke from bombed oil tanks dominates the skyline, spreading upwards and outwards, suggesting brutal destruction against a background of calm beauty. The long sea wall slashes horizontally across the centre of the picture from the East Mole, marking one of the main evacuation points. On the beach in the left foreground, lines of troops await rescue, under fire from aircraft. Long queues of soldiers snake down to the water's edge, where there was a scramble to get on to the small boats. Some heeled over as too many men tried to clamber aboard the boats, while others capsized under the sheer weight. A variety of small vessels came close in shore to carry the troops out to larger ships outside the harbour, and in the centre one has sunk, either by bombing or overloading.

Full of minute detail, this work was not an eyewitness account but was reconstructed using a combination of notes, sketches made the previous summer, on-the-spot accounts, and a few photographs. The work is meticulously and highly finished, and demonstrates the artist's love of narrative incident. Eurich wrote that 'the traditional sea-painting of van de Velde and Turner should be carried on to enrich and record our heritage'.