10 Huge Historical Inaccuracies In Chris Nolan's Dunkirk

During the Second World War, everyone smoked. A lot. The world's militaries got the habit during the First World War when tobacco companies gave free cigarettes to soldiers, and cancer sticks had been part of standard Allied rations for decades by the time of Dunkirk.

And yet, aside from a Tommy scrounging a cigarette butt in the opening moments, no one smokes in Dunkirk. Soldiers are given the traditional life-giving cup of tea, as is all very British and correct, but they should also have a fag hanging from their mouths. Soldiers in the grim situations depicted in the movie would be particularly apt to light up just to give themselves something to do while waiting for deliverance, but no one does.

Oddly enough, a rare exception to the ubiquity of smoking was one Adolf Hitler. He thought smoking was a disgusting habit (far more so, presumably, than committing genocide) and instigated one of the world's first anti-smoking programmes in Nazi Germany.