Brigadier Charles S Grant said the 51st Highland Division was put under French command to bolster the country's defence against German forces.

But after days of fighting, about 10,000 members of the division captured at St Valery-en-Caux, on 12 June 1940.

Brig Grant said at the time that the 51st was "unknowingly sacrificed".

He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that, also for the purposes of propaganda and to keep morale high, the British government had not wanted Dunkirk to be seen as a defeat.

A flotilla of 900 naval and civilian craft, under RAF protection, managed to rescue 338,226 people from the French port.

A further 220,000 Allied troops were rescued by British ships from Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Brest, and Saint-Nazaire, bringing the total of Allied troops evacuated to 558,000.

However, elements of the British Expeditionary Force had remained behind in an attempt to hold back troops led by General Erwin Rommel.

They included the 51st Highland Division and the 1st Royal Scots, a regular battalion that recruited from Edinburgh and the Lothians.

The Royals and soldiers of the 2nd Royal Norfolk were ordered to make a last stand at Le Paradis, close to La Bassée Canal, before being overwhelmed by German army and SS regiments.