The evacuation of surrounded British and French troops from the embattled beaches of Dunkirk by hundreds of little boats crossing the English Channel in the opening days of the Second World War has been dramatized lately in the movies Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. In fact, answering a call from Winston Churchill to save their countrymen, some 700 civilian “little ships” – from pleasure craft to a paddle schooner – rescued 338,226 men from Dunkirk over five days in 1940, amid dive bombing and staffing from the German Luftwaffe and artillery and rifle fire on shore.
One of the first boats to reach Dunkirk was Trimilia, pictured above, built in 1925 and serving as a life-saving boat in Ramsgate, north of Dover. With a volunteer crew, Trimilia saved 330 lives there before the war.
Once Trimilia reached Dunkirk, it made trip after trip carrying men from the beaches to larger boats offshore; it held 160 men itself plus many more on small boats it towed behind. The first night Trimilia saved 800 men. Over the next three days, even though it was hit by shells, shrapnel and bullets, Trimilia rescued 2,800 men all told. Its coxswain, Howard Primrose Knight, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for bravery.
During the evacuation of Dunkirk the British Royal Navy lost six destroyers and 24 smaller ships. More than 70 of the “little ships” were lost too. Read more:
http://trimilia.co.uk/dunkirk/
