One weekend last month, and if you were up and about early morning, you would have seen by Hampton Court Bridge, at the Thames Motor Yacht Club, a gathering of some of the most beautiful vintage boats.
An unlikely collection of heroic craft, not built for war, which came from the rivers and coastal waters of England. All had stories to tell, and all were involved in the in the evacuation of Dunkirk, one of the most audacious mass rescues in history. Many had never been to sea, until a memorable page of history was written across the nine days between 26th May and 5th June 1940.
Boats of all shapes and sizes took part: fishing boats, lifeboats, pleasure boats and even sailing boats. The British and French armies were surrounded on three sides by German Forces. On the fourth side lay the shallow waters of the Dunkirk beaches, too shallow for naval vessels to get near. The only possibility to mount a mass rescue was to get craft with shallow enough draft to enable them to get close in and get the soldiers on board. Word went out. The Admiralty directed many boatyards along the Thames, the Estuary and Kent to help source boat and crew.
Boats should be over 30ft in length with a draft of no more than 3 ft. 6. Without being able to understand basic naval signals when challenged at night, they ran the risk of being sunk by their own side. The flotilla of ‘Little Ships’ were able to get in close enough to make all the difference. On the first day of the evacuation, only 7,669 men were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, more than 385,000 soldiers had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats in order to fight another day.
Without the daring of these small vessels and men wanting to do their bit, so many thousands of soldiers would have been trapped and died without a chance. One such “Little Ship” on show, was the “Endeavour”, a cockle boat. The “Endeavour” played her full part – first embarking the soldiers from the beach, and then, as the tide went out, from the Mole and the inner Harbour of Dunkirk itself.
The Thames Motor Yacht Club, proudly led by its Commodore, Jeremy Schomberg, was this year’s host to some of the last few remaining veterans from what was a quite remarkable show of human courage and bravery, together with fellow heroes from other military encounters.