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  • Dunkirk – 75th anniversary.
  • wwaswas
    Full Member

    On the first day of the evacuation, only 7,669 men were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats.

    Difficult to imagine what those on the beaches and in the boats went through during those days. One of my Grandad’s was there but he would never speak about it.

    The older I get the more touched I am by what these men and women went through to protect their families and homes.

    The little ships are heading over there again in the next few days.

    Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    There is a very good exhibition in the bunker complex at Dover Castle about Dunkirk. The achievement of rescuing so many was incredible.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    I thought it wasn’t hastily collected boats they used.

    Was there not a mandatory declaration of any boats of a specified length to be made available for just such an occurence?

    Not that it wasn’t an impressive undertaking.

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    wwaswas
    Full Member

    doesn’t look like it was planned as such:

    The situation of the troops, who had been cut off from their advance into France by a pincer movement from the German army, was regarded by the British prime minister Winston Churchill as the greatest military defeat for centuries; it appeared likely to cost Britain the war, leaving the country vulnerable to invasion by Germany.[1][2][3] Because of the shallow waters, British destroyers were unable to approach the beaches, and soldiers were having to wade out to the warships, many of them waiting hours shoulder deep in water.

    On 27 May, the small-craft section of the British Ministry of Shipping telephoned boat builders around the coast, asking them to collect all boats with “shallow draft” that could navigate the shallow waters. Attention was directed to the pleasure boats, private yachts and launches moored on the River Thames and along the south and east coasts. Some of them were taken with the owners’ permission – and with the owners insisting they would sail them – while others were requisitioned by the government with no time for the owners to be contacted. The boats were checked to make sure they were seaworthy, fueled, and taken to Ramsgate to set sail for Dunkirk. They were manned by Naval Officers, Ratings and experienced volunteers. Very few owners manned their own vessels, apart from fishermen and one or two others.[2]

    When they reached France, some of the boats acted as shuttles between the beaches and the destroyers, ferrying soldiers to the warships. Others carried hundreds of soldiers each back to Ramsgate, protected by the Royal Air Force from the attacks of the Luftwaffe.

    Also see ‘ongoing evacuation efforts’ here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    My Grandpa spent his life telling everyone he was on boat X, basically a tug helping in warships at Oban for the war. The whole family went to the Forth Bridge in 1990 to see ‘his’ boat heading for the scrapyard…

    A month before he died, ill in hospital after a stroke, he actually let on he was on a converted boom defence vessel, and had taken part in Dunkirk evacuation, numerous events in the Med and had been a boat that a few of the mini-subs used for practising around the West Coast.

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