EVACUATION OF MEN OF THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND THE FRENCH ARMY FROM DUNKIRK.* THE WORK OF THE LIFE-BOATS OF RAMSGATE AND MARGATE.

At 1.15 in the afternoon of Thursday, the 30th of May, 1940, the Ministry of Shipping called up the Institution on the telephone and asked it to send at once to Dover as many of its life-boats as possible. The Ministry was told that they would be sent.

That was all, no other information was sought or given ; but it was easy to guess for what those life-boats were wanted. Three weeks before, on the 10th of May, the German armies had invaded Holland and Belgium, and the French and British armies had moved forward into Belgium to meet them. Events had followed one another with terrible and increasing speed. By the fifteenth the Germans had broken through the French line and had turned towards the English Channel. By the twenty-third they had reached it at the mouth of the Somme, So doing they had divided the British army from the French and had left the British no way of retreat but by the sea. It had three ports : Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. The Germans took Boulogne on the twenty-third, and Calais three days later. They were pressing hard on the British army’s right flank. On the twenty-seventh they forced the surrender of the Belgian army on its left flank. They were now attacking it in front and on both flanks. Behind it was the sea and only one port was left to it - Dunkirk. Already the Germans had announced that the iron ring had closed round it, and the Prime Minister had warned the House of Commons to be prepared for hard and heavy tidings. Such was the state of the war in France and Flanders when, on the 30th of May, the Ministry of Shipping asked for life-boats to be sent to Dover. Certainly it was not difficult to guess why they were to go.

Four days earlier - though this was not known at the time - the Navy had started to bring off troops from Dunkirk. but town and port were now almost destroyed. German bombers had descended on them in hundreds and set them ablaze. There remained nothing alongside which ships could berth except, a wooden breakwater. It was only five feet wide and had never been intended for such a purpose, but it was all now left in the port to embark an army. Besides that breakwater were the beaches, sixteen miles of flat sand and sand-dunes stretching eastwards from Dunkirk to Nieuport. They were as difficult as beaches could be for such a task. Even at high water ships could not get within half a mile of them. But if the army were to be embarked those beaches must be used. It was to carry the men from them to the waiting ships that the Ministry of Shipping had asked all the ports of England, from Hull to Southampton, to send every boat that could reach Dover within twenty-four hours.

As soon as the Institution received that call it telephoned to its eighteen stations from Gorleston in Norfolk, 110 miles north of Dover, to Shoreham Harbour, in Sussex, 80 miles to the west. Each station was asked to send its life-boat to Dover at once for special duty under the Admiralty. She was to take a full crew, full fuel tanks, and a grass warp for towing.

While this urgent message was being sent to the life-boats along those 190 miles of coast, two of them were already on their way to Dunkirk. That morning the naval officers-in- charge at Ramsgate and Margate had asked their life-boats if they would go, and both crews had said at once that they would. The Prudential, of Ramsgate, was the first away. She left at 2.20 in the afternoon. Coxswain Howard Primrose Knight was in command of her, and he had a crew of eight men. They had been given gas masks and steel helmets, and the life-boat was loaded with four coils of grass warp and cans of fresh water for the troops. She took in tow eight boats, most of them wherries, manned by eighteen naval men, and when she reached Dunkirk her part was to tow the wherries between the beaches and the waiting ships.

The Margate life-boat, The Lord Southborough (Civil Service No. l), was under the command of Coxswain Edward Drake Parker. He took ten men with him, two more than his usual crew. They were given steel helmets, food and cigarettes, and they left, so the naval officer at Margate said, in the best of spirits at 5.30 in the afternoon. The life-boat went in company of a Dutch barge, commanded by a naval officer, and the barge towed her.

The two life-boats had a journey of about fifty miles by a way which had been hurriedly swept through the mine-fields when the direct way from Dover to Dunkirk along the French coast came under the fire of German guns at Calais. Those who made that journey were amazed and uplifted by the sight of the crowded waters, with their double stream of traffic, ships and boats of every kind hurrying out to the dangers of the beaches, and those others on their way back to England, their decks loaded with troops.

They are at all times difficult waters with their shallows and strong tides. Now the narrow channels of deeper water through which ships could pass were unlighted ; German submarines and fast motor boats were moving in them ; German aeroplanes were sowing them with mines ; already they were studded with wrecks. The air above was even more dangerous. Every five minutes German bombers came over to attack Dunkirk or the beaches or the waters beyond, and by night if a motor-boat showed no more than a glimmer of light on her instrument panel it was enough to bring on her a salvo of bombs.

There were other perils. Three days before, men in England had anxiously watched the reports of a storm which was coming in from the Atlantic and had wondered which way it would move. Mercifully it had turned northwards up the west coast of Ireland, and no more than the fringe of it had touched the Straits of Dover, but this had been enough to raise a sea at Dunkirk which had made the beaches dangerous. Now a light variable wind was blowing from the west and the surf had gone down.

THE RAMSGATE LIFE-BOAT

The Ramsgate life-boat reached Dunkirk at eight in the evening. There the heavy black smoke from the burning oil-tanks hung low above the beaches and the sea. She went on another two miles to Malo les Bains and lay alongside a Dutch coaster until it was night. The coxswain then sent off three of his wherries, each with one life-boatman on board. The men rowed ashore, called into the darkness until they were answered, and filled their boats with men. The coxswain now sent off three more of his wherries, with twelve of the naval men on board, some to man them, others to be landed and to help in pushing the boats off the beach. They were to follow the three life-boatmen, now pulling to the shore for the second time, but they must have missed them in the darkness and gone ashore elsewhere, for they never returned. The coxswain then manned a seventh wherry with three more naval men, and the four wherries plied between beach and life-boat, gathering men, putting them aboard the life-boat, returning for more.

Once, as they came ashore, a voice called to them, “I cannot see who you are. Are you a naval party? ” He was answered, “No, sir, we are men of the crew of the Ramsgate life-boat.” The voice called back, “Thank you, and thank God for such men as you have this night proved yourselves to be. There is a party of fifty Highlanders coming next.”

It was slow and hard work, even to life-boatmen well used to managing small boats on a beach. They would take the wherries in stern first, and hold them in the surf until the soldiers came. There was no rush nor scramble. The soldiers moved into the sea to their officers’ orders, wading out waist-deep. One man only could climb over the stern at a time. Eight were a full load.

The life-boat herself could take on board, in a calm sea, 160 men close-packed. As the wherries filled her, she in turn put off to a motor-ship that lay further out. So all night the work went on, and before day broke the lifeboat and her wherries had brought off some 800 men. By this time the motor ship herself was filled, and she made for England but, her engines had only two cylinders working and her master was doubtful if she would arrive. Two of the life-boat’s crew had been helping on board, and they went with her. As soon as it was light the coxswain. took the life-boat inshore to look for his three missing wherries. He found only one, lying empty on the beach, one of many boats washed up and abandoned.

With the coming of day the shelling and bombing increased. Now, too, the wind had freshened. It had veered to north-west and was blowing right onshore A swell was making and boats were capsizing in the surf. But over the sand-dunes the troops came in unbroken flow and the lifeboatmen baled out their wherries and got to work again. The sea, like the beach, was littered with wreckage and was thick with oil from bombed and broken motor-boats. With the rising wind and surf, with the wreckage, with the oil that clogged their oars, the men found it impossible any longer to row the wherries. Instead the lifeboat, lying eighty yards off shore, dropped them down to it on ropes, each wherry with two men on board, and hauled them out again. They came loaded, shipping water, the soldiers baling with their steel helmets to keep them afloat.

The life-boat found time also to give tows to other boats that had broken down or that could not get through the surf. Once the coxswain saw soldiers on the beach trying to launch a whaler, and two boys helping them. They launched her, but they could do no more. They had only three broken oars and the surf began to fill her. The life-boat ran down to them, threw a rope and towed them out to a Dutch schuyt. She was part of the Dunkirk fleet, with an English officer in command and the white ensign flying. She took the soldiers on board, and her commander gave the two French boys food and drink. They looked not more than fourteen years old. Sailors baled out their whaler and the boys went back. The last the life-boatmen saw of them they were landing on the beach alone.

So the morning passed. In the afternoon a destroyer asked the lifeboat to go to La Panne, six miles to the eastward. She had now only three of her wherries left. The others, broken and leaking, had one by one been left on the beach. And of the twenty-seven men who had sailed from Ramsgate twenty-four hours before only ten - seven life-boatmen and three naval men - were still with her.

At La Panne she found destroyers and a monitor anchored as close as possible to the shore. Bombers continually attacked them and the ships answered with their guns. Bombs were falling on the beaches and in the sea, and from the beaches small boats were struggling out through the surf. Some came through, half-full of water. Others were thrown back. The lifeboat went to their help and towed many of them to the monitor and destroyers. This work continued through that Friday afternoon, through the evening and into the night. During the night the last of the wherries was broken by a piece of shell.

It was now the third day since the life-boat had left Ramsgate, and she had helped to bring off some 2,800 men. Her crew were exhausted, her wherries gone ; and at 1.30 on the Saturday morning she sailed for Ramsgate. When she came home she had been away for over forty hours. For thirty of those hours she had worked on the beaches ; for nearly all that time she had been under fire ; for two nights her crew had been without sleep.

THE MARGATE LIFE-BOAT

The Margate life-boat reached the beaches some hours later than the Ramsgate boat, for the barge that had her in tow went on along the coast from Dunkirk fifteen miles eastward to Nieuport. As they went the crews could smell Dunkirk burning. It was midnight, when they reached Nieuport, and they knew at once the difficulties awaiting them, for the barge ran aground on a sand-bank. The life-boat was bumping on the sand, but was still afloat. She tried to tow off the barge. This failed, and all that she could do was to run out an anchor for her and leave her to haul herself off by it when the tide should flow. Then, with an anchor of her own out astern, her engine running dead slow, and the barge’s commander wishing her good luck, she felt her way through the darkness and the shallows towards the shore. Her crew heard a voice calling, and as they got near they could dimly see a dark mass above the surf. It was the waiting men.

They were eighty Frenchmen, and by the time the life-boatmen had dragged them all aboard the coxswain was glad that he had brought those two extra men with him. The life-boat drew over four feet of water, and the soldiers had to wade out until they were up to their arm-pits in the sea. As they stood beside the boat her rail was four feet above their heads. To haul them up those four feet - weary men, heavy with water - was work to exhaust the strongest. The life-boat took the eighty out to the stranded barge and went in to the beaches again. More men were waiting. This time they were from the Border Regiment. She loaded up with them, and their weight sank her until she was hard on the sands. It was now low water and she waited until the tide flowed and she floated again. Then she took the men to the barge, and for the third time returned to the beaches. A British officer swam out to her and asked that he might guide her some way along the shore to his own men ; but here the beaches were still thick with troops waiting, and the coxswain would not go elsewhere.

Out through the surf and darkness they crowded, not knowing how deep they would have to go before they reached the boat. Some had taken off their boots and trousers, but there was hardly a man who had not his rifle with him. One small soldier waded out holding high his rifle - and a banjo. As he stood beside the boat, with little more than his head above water, the coxswain told him to drop them and come aboard. He dropped the rifle. He held the banjo. Two minutes later he had squatted on the deck and was strumming and humming to himself.

Day was now breaking and the life-boat was told to take her men not to the barge but to the destroyer Icarus, which lay some distance farther out.
This she did, and went backwards and forwards between the destroyer and the still crowded beaches until her coxswain had lost count of her journeys. Once, as she lay alongside, the officer on the bridge shouted to her to cast off. She obeyed, and at the same moment a flight of German aeroplanes came out of the clouds. For a few seconds the life-boatmen were conscious only of bursting bombs and machine-guns firing. Then the noise was over and they found themselves still unhurt. When next they went alongside the destroyer it was not bombs that descended on them, but a large pot of stew. They could not pause for a meal, but from time to time as they worked they dipped their fingers in the pot and ate a mouthful.

Of their work the commander of the Icarus wrote later, “The, magnificent behaviour of the crew of the Margate life-boat who, with no thought of rest, brought off load after load of soldiers from Dunkirk, under continuous shelling, bombing and aerial machine-gun fire, will be an inspiration to us as long as we live.”

Here at Nieuport as farther west at Malo les Bains, the freshening wind had raised a swell, and by seven o’clock in the morning the surf was so
heavy that the life-boat could no longer go near the shore. Instead, on the orders of the destroyer, she went up and down outside the surf searching for men who had put off on rafts or wreckage. She rescued many in this way. All the time shells and bombs were bursting on the sands, and aeroplanes were diving to machine-gun the boats and the patient troops.

The life-boatmen saw a whaler and a motor boat turn over and sink. Boats lay wrecked all along the line of surf. Others were half buried in the
sand and soldiers were labouring to dig and drag them out. At the water’s edge cattle wandered. But so far as the life-boatmen could see not a boat except their own was afloat. She was alone, and men were wading out to her. Some of them were knocked over by the surf, struggled, and failed to rise. Others stepped suddenly from the shallow water covering the many sandbanks into the deeper channels between them, and disappeared. The life-boat saw men drowning close to her, and could not reach them. To remain near the beach was to tempt them to their death. She drew farther off and made westwards to Dunkirk. As she passed Malo les Bains her crew saw, high on the beach, the charred and twisted remains of their own familiar pleasure steamer, Crested Eagle, that used to ply between Margate and Tower Bridge. On her way she rescued two officers and fifteen sailors all that were left of a naval party of 150 who had been working on the beaches for four days. They had found a whaler lying in the sand, full of water, and had emptied her. She had no oars and no rowlocks, but they had collected oars scattered about the beach and had lashed them to the gunwhales with pieces of rope. When the life-boat met them it was nearly nine in the morning, and since daybreak they had been trying desperately to row out to one of the distant ships. In that wind and surf the life-boat could do no more, and she made for Margate, taking with her those last seventeen, that she had rescued. She arrived at three in the afternoon on Friday, the 31st of May. She had then been away for nearly twenty-four hours, and brought off the beaches some six hundred men.

AWARD OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDALS

Such was the share of the Ramsgate and Margate life-boats in the glory of the Dunkirk fleet which snatched over 300,000 men out of the hand of the enemy as it was closing triumphantly on them. Both the coxswains, Howard Knight and Edward Parker, were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for their “gallantry and determination,” and the house-flag of the Institution which had flown at the mast-head of the Ramsgate life-boat through those forty hours now hangs in the Ramsgate parish church of St. George.

THE INSTITUTION’S REWARDS.

To the Ramsgate and Margate lifeboat stations the Committee of Management sent letters conveying their “ warm appreciation of the magnificent work done by the crews on this occasion, which for ever will remain an outstanding example of the courage of the life-boatmen of these islands.” The Institution also made the following awards: To RAMSGATE : To the coxswain and each member of the crew the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum: HOWARD P. C. KNIGHT, coxswain, ALFRED H. MOODY, acting second-coxswain, ERNEST C. W. ATTWOOD, motor-mechanic, THOMAS H. READ, assistant motor-mechanic, ALFRED D. LIDDLE, CHARLES E. KNIGHT, EDWARD C.

COOPER, JOHN T. HAWKES, THOMAS H. GOLDFINCH, life-boatmen.

To the coxswain and each member of his crew a reward of £8 3s., being double the scale reward of £4 1s. 6d. ; standard rewards to crew £32 12s. ; additional rewards to crew £40 15s. ; total rewards £73 7s.

An inscribed metal plaque was presented to the coxswain and each member of the crew by the Prudential Assurance Company, donors of the lifeboat.

To MARGATE : To the coxswain and each member of the crew the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum : EDWARD D. PARKER, coxswain, THOMAS D. HARMAN, second-coxswain, HENRY PARKER, bowman, EDWARD J. JORDAN, motor-mechanic, WILLIAM B. MACKIE, assistant motor-mechanic, DENNIS PRICE, signalman, JOHN LETLEY, ALFRED MORRIS, ARTHUR LADD, EDWARD E. PARKER and WILLIAM HOPPER, life-boatmen.

To the coxswain and each member of his crew a reward of £4 8s., being double the scale reward of £2 4s. ; standard rewards to crew and helpers. £26 4s. ; additional rewards to crew £26 8s. ; total rewards £52 12s.

THE WORK OF SEVENTEEN OTHER LIFE-BOATS AT DUNKIRK AND OF MEMBERS OF THE INSTITUTION’S STAFF AT DOVER.

The life-boats called out by telephone from London in the afternoon of Thursday the 30th of May got quickly away.

They were : the Louise Stephens; of Great Yarmouth and Gorleston ; the Michael Stephens, of Lowestoft ; the Mary Scott, of Southwold ; the Abdy Beauclerk and the Lucy Lavers, of Aldeburgh ; the E.M.E.D., of Walton and Frinton ; the Edward Z. Dresden, of Clacton-on-Sea ; the Greater London (Civil Service No. 3), of Southend-on-Sea ; the Charles Dibdin (Civil Service No. 2), of Walmer ; The Viscountess Wakefield, of Hythe ; the Charles Cooper Henderson, of Dungeness ; the Cyril and Lilian Bishop, of Hastings ; the Jane Holland, of Eastbourne ; the Cecil and Lilian Philpott, of Newhaven; and the Rosa Woodd and Phyllis Lunn, of Shoreham Harbour. The Thomas Kirk Wright, of Poole and Bournemouth, was sent to Dover by the naval officer-in-charge at Poole, and the Rowhedge Ironworks, Essex, sent to Sheerness, manned by life-boatmen from Walton-on-the-Naze, a new, unnamed life-boat which they had just completed. After Dunkirk she was stationed at Cadgwith. A gift of £5,000 from the Girl Guides of the Empire was used to pay for her, and at the request of the Girl Guides Association she was named Guide of Dunkirk.

Of these seventeen life-boats fifteen went to Dunkirk from Dover, and two, the Clacton-on-Sea boat and the boat from the Rowhedge Ironworks, went from Ramsgate. The coxswain and crew of the life-boat at Dover were ready to go, but the admiral commanding kept them and their life-boat for work at Dover.

The first of these boats to leave their stations were the two from Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. Walmer, from Kent, sailed shortly afterwards, then Southend, from the Thames, and Hastings and Newhaven from Sussex. Three life-boats arrived at Dover that evening, and by 7.30 next morning, when Ramsgate and Margate were busy on the beaches forty miles away, another seven, which had travelled through the night, were waiting outside the harbour. Others came in during the day. All but one arrived within twenty-nine hours of the summons.

The three life-boats that reached Dover on the Thursday evening were from Hythe, Walmer and Dungeness, and the Hythe coxswain was the first to be told what was wanted of him. He understood it to be that he was to run his life-boat on the beach at Dunkirk, load her with troops and bring them out to ships. She was a boat weighing over fourteen tons, and he said that it could not be done. He could never get her off without the help of winches, and he would not attempt at Dunkirk what he knew that he could not do at Hythe. The Walmer and Dungeness coxswains agreed with him. Their boats were of the same type as his, but rather heavier. Then the Hythe coxswain - he had served in the navy in the 1914- 18 war - asked other questions. He asked, in particular, what pensions would be given to their families should they be killed. When he was told he asked to have it in writing. That was refused him, and he refused to go, His crew, and the Walmer and Dungeness coxswains and crews, also refused. The Navy took the lifeboats, sent to Sheerness for naval men to man them, and gave the life-boatmen railway vouchers for their journey home.

Three weeks later the Institution held an inquiry at Hythe. It found that the Hythe coxswain had induced not only his own crew but the crews of Walmer and Dungeness to refuse to take their life-boats to Dunkirk, and he and the Hythe motor-mechanic were dismissed from the service., The coxswain had held his position for over twenty years, and had won the Institution’s thanks on vellum and its silver medal for gallantry. When told the decision he said, “ I have a fishing boat and will not see a man drown if I can get her off.” Two months later he made good that promise by rescuing two British airmen from a crashed bomber. The motor-mechanic said, "If the order had come from the Institution to proceed to Dunkirk and do the best you can, there would have been no holding back.”

When the next seven life-boats arrived off Dover in the morning a naval launch went out to them, told their crews for what they were wanted, gave them their course to Dunkirk and sent them into the harbour to refuel. As soon as they went in their boats were taken from them by naval men. Not knowing of the refusal of the first three crews, they were surprised and very indignant. Some, if not all, had guessed ; why they had come to Dover. Some had made special preparations. One crew had bought itself steel helmets. Another had taken on board extra emergency-rations and first-aid stores. They protested, but it was useless. They were allowed no choice. The Navy had decided. It had brought over its own men. Then it said it would take the motor mechanics. The life-boatmen’s reply was curt: “All or none.”

Those harassed and overburdened naval officers at Dover were organising, not in advance but in the heat and pressure of events, a complicated and perilous operation. They wanted boats. They wanted men. They wanted no more argument. Yet these men, ready to go, whom they now rejected, knew their boats and engines as no one else knew them. They would have handled them in the difficult shallows and currents of the Dunkirk coast as no one else could handle them. Instead, they saw them manned by sailors who had never been aboard them before, and their engines put in charge of stokers, who had first to be taught how to start and stop them. Fortunately men arrived at Dover that evening who were able to give the stokers a hurried lesson before they sailed.

On the morning of that day, the 31st of May, Commander John Upton, R.D., R.N.R., the inspector of lifeboats for the east coast, was at Brightlingsea, in Essex, a hundred miles away. He heard of the trouble at Dover, went there at once by road, and arrived at 7.30 in the evening, just as the last three of the rejected and disappointed crews were being given their railway vouchers. It was too late to attempt to put right what had gone wrong, but he found at Dover two of the Institution’s reserve mechanics ready to go anywhere and do anything. The three at once volunteered to go to Dunkirk in charge of two of the life-boats, but they were told that there was more urgent work for them at Dover. Besides the fifteen life-boats the Navy now had in the submarine dock a large fleet of motor-boats of all kinds. It had officers in plenty from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve coming to take command of them, but it had no mechanics to carry out repairs, and as the boats returned from Dunkirk there would be unending work to make them ready for fresh journeys.

So it was arranged. Commander Upton and his mechanics became a repairing party for all motor-boats sailing out of Dover for Dunkirk. They began their duties that evening by teaching the naval stokers how to handle the engines of the life-boats. It was of necessity a very brief course, three-quarters of an hour of instruction by the mechanics, followed by a quarter of an hour’s run round the harbour under Commander Upton, with the stoker himself at the controls. Then he was passed as a trained engineer. This work went on until it was stopped by the darkness. It began again early next morning, and one by one the life-boats left for Dunkirk.

The full story of what they did there, how they did it, how many men they brought off, and what lives were lost aboard them, will never be known, but from time to time, during the next five days, they returned bringing with them fragments of the tales of their adventures and scars more speaking than any tale. Newhaven, Poole and Bournemouth, Walton and Frinton, Lowestoft and Clacton all worked in Dunkirk harbour itself, carrying men through the crowded darkness to the ships outside. Newhaven was there for two nights, was herself stranded on the beach for over two hours, and brought off over 600 men. Poole and Bournemouth, loaded with French soldiers, came under fire from German troops on the shore at less than forty yards, but no one was hurt. Walton and Frinton went over in a little company of boats in tow of a tug. Off Gravelines German aeroplanes attacked them three times. The blast broke the tow-rope and threw men into the sea. One boat was sunk, others turned back, but Walton and Frinton went on. The officer in command of her was killed by a shell, and she returned to Dover with a rope round her propeller. A diver went down and cut it away. Then she sailed again for Dunkirk. Lowestoft, was twice rammed by motor torpedo-boats, but she continued her work and returned to Dover under her own power, Clacton took out her last load about daybreak on the final day just before the last of the boats left the harbour and it was closed with block-ships. On her way home an aeroplane attacked her with machine-guns. Of the two Aldeburgh boats no more is known than that one of them worked in Dunkirk harbour, of Dungeness that she arrived off Margate with four sailors on board, one of them wounded, and two of her stanchions torn away, of Hastings that one of her end-boxes was damaged, of Walmer that she came home with holes in both sides.

One of the inspectors of the Lifeboat Service, now in the Navy, Sub- Lieutenant Stephen Dickinson, found himself in command of the Southwold life-boat. He had already made two trips to Dunkirk, and on Saturday, the 1st of June, he went over for the third time on board a paddle-steamer, the Emperor of India. She had the lifeboat and two other boats in tow. At eleven that night she anchored off Dunkirk, and Mr. Dickinson was sent ashore in the life-boat towing two of the ship’s boats. High explosive shells and shrapnel were bursting all along the beach, and it was empty of troops. They were sheltering in the town. The first lieutenant of the Emperor of India landed and went in search of them, while the three boats waited in the surf under fire. They waited for two hours. It was one in the morning when the men arrived and in two journeys the life-boat, and the two ship’s boats in tow of her, brought off 160 men. Shortly before dawn the commander of the Emperor of India decided to return to Dover, but Mr. Dickinson remained with the Southwold life-boat, went ashore for the third time, and took on board his third load of fifty men. It was now dangerously near dawn. He tried to push the life-boat off the beach, but she was fast. He tried again ; still she would not move. Then a soldier in her bows called out, “Hoi, mister, you’re pushing against a lorry.” It must have been run out into the sea to make a pier until it was almost submerged, and the life-boat had passed it unseen in the darkness. She worked clear of it, unloaded her fifty men on to a ship and returned for the fourth time, but her engine stopped and could not be restarted. It was now day and she was helpless on the beach, but the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston life-boat, making for England with troops on board, came within hail and took off her crew. That afternoon the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston boat arrived at Dover, and there Mr. Dickinson had some sleep, the first for several days. Next morning - it was now Monday the 3rd of June - he volunteered for another trip, and got from Commander Upton the Shoreham Harbour life-boat. He led a marauding party round the dockyard, found a large sheet of steel, which he fastened behind the steering-wheel, built a screen of fenders on either side, and with his helmsman so protected, and a white ensign almost as large as the boat herself at his masthead, was about to sail on his fourth journey when he was stopped. The shelling was now reported to be so steady on the beaches that boats were forbidden to go across.

Another member of the Life-boat Service, also in the Navy, Lieutenant (E.) R. H. Wallace, an assistant surveyor of machinery, returned from Dunkirk and went over for a second time in the new life-boat which had come straight from the building yard. He joined her by jumping aboard just as she sailed. She was towed across and arrived at dusk, but before she could cast off the tow-rope it parted and was carried round her propeller. All night she drifted off Dunkirk, her crew watching the fires in the town and listening to the explosions of oil-tanks and ammunition-dumps. Next morning the surveyor stripped and went overboard with a knife, but the rope, drawn tight round the propeller’s shaft, was hard as iron. He could not cut it and climbed aboard again covered with oil. The crew then made sail, using the life-boat’s own mizzen and blankets sewn together with string. which they hoisted on two boat-hooks. These sails gave her only two knots, but her crew now had some control over her. Later, by working the engine, they were able to loosen the rope a little and started on their journey back to England, moving slowly stern first. In the end they were found fast asleep on a light-vessel in the mouth of the Thames, and the life-boat was taken to Sheerness.

The naval officers had soon discovered what manner of boats the life-boats were and one of them wrote afterwards, “ I took the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston life-boat across to Dunkirk on two nights. Her performance was a revelation and a delight.” Such was the competition to get command of one of them that a wise commander, returning to Dover, took, no risks. When he handed his life-boat over to the repairing party he would leave one of his own crew on board as watchman. The watchman would at once fall asleep, but his sleeping presence was enough to keep possession. On the Sunday morning a naval officer unshaven and red-eyed, went to Commander Upton. For the past week, he said, he had been bringing men off the beaches. He had used every kind, of boat, and every boat had sunk under him. Could he be given a boat that would not sink? He was given the Eastbourne life-boat, and set off once more for Dunkirk. Next day he was back again and told his tale. A French motor torpedo boat had rammed her. A German aeroplane had sprayed her with machine- gun bullets. Outside Dunkirk her was found drifting in the English Channel and was brought into Dover. Her fore-end box was stove in. She had over 500 bullet-holes in her. She was full of water. But she had kept the word given for her that she would not sink. She was repaired, but it was not until the beginning of April 1941, ten months later, that she was ready to go back to her station.

At one time it seemed certain that several of the nineteen life-boats would never leave Dunkirk. The honorary secretary of the Margate station, who went over in a destroyer on the Sunday morning, saw three of them ashore. But in the end, by devious and mysterious ways, all except one returned. She was the Hythe boat, the coxswain of which had refused to run her on the beaches, saying that he could never get her off. Nothing was heard of her for three weeks. Then the Admiralty sent word that she had been damaged and abandoned. The Ramsgate coxswain reported later that on the Friday evening, the 31st of May, he had seen her approaching La Panne : “She was put aground. The soldiers waded out to her, and with the men on board she was knocking up on the shore, and there she stopped.”

The work of the rescuing fleet came to an end on Tuesday the 4th of June. All ships were ordered to leave Dunkirk by 2.30 that morning. But boats were still adrift between England and France, and French soldiers were still in Dunkirk. In those last hours a life-boat saved a destroyer. At 1.30 on that Tuesday morning the destroyer H.M.S. Kellet tried to embark 200 French soldiers from the mole, but some obstruction under water prevented her from coming alongside. The harbour was then being cleared of what remained in it, and the block ships were to be sunk at its entrance. If she were not to be trapped the destroyer must leave at once. Her bows were touching the beach and her commander tried to put her astern, but again something under water was in the way. One of her screws caught engine had stopped and she had again come under fire. He was forced to abandon it, and try as he would he could not move her. There seemed no one left to help him when he saw a life-boat pass full of soldiers. He hailed her and she hauled the destroyer off the beach. By that timely pluck at the last moment this life-boat saved the the destroyer and her crew from capture. She was the Greater London (Civil Service No. 3), of Southend-on-Sea. Other life-boatmen besides those who took their life-boats to Dover answered the summons in their own boats.

Other life-boatmen besides those who took their life-boats to Dover answered the summons in their own boats. On the evening of Thursday, the 30th of May, a message came to Wells, in Norfolk, asking that all the fishing boats should go to Lowestoft; and all went. Seventeen men were aboard them and all but one were life-boatmen. The life-boat herself was away at a shipyard being overhauled. They went to Lowestoft, then to Harwich and then to Ramsgate. At Ramsgate there was a call for volun- teers to sail on a secret mission across the Channel.. Among those who volunteered was the coxswain of the Wells life-boat. He was a Dane by birth, and his birthplace had become a base for German seaplanes. He was ready for any adventure. Four of the boats were chosen for the mission, but they were small to go overseas, open boats not more than 25 feet long. Each had a small motor and a dipping lugsail. They were sent first to Dover, and the coxswain, who had set out from Wells a simple fisherman, arrived there still wearing his life-boat coxswain’s cap, but now armed with rifle and revolver and declaring that he was going to fight those Germans. The boat was in charge of an ex-captain of the Indian Army. Two naval gunners had been added to her crew. She carried a twin Lewis gun, a bucket of hand grenades and a gallon of rum.

A naval ship towed her and the three other fishing boats from Dover along the coast to Dungeness, and from there, by night, across the Channel. Near the French coast she gave them their orders. They were to wait off shore for a signal. They were to wait for one hour. If the signal were made they must sail in and pick up whoever was there. Should they run aground when close to the shore and not be able to get off, they were to land, taking their guns with them, and hide in the sand-dunes. Then the destroyer left them and they waited in great expectation, but the hour passed with no signal made, and they returned across the Channel (one of the boats capsizing on the way), their mission, through no fault of their own, unaccomplished, wondering who the mysterious stranger could have been. It was rumoured that he was Sir Lancelot Oliphant, British Ambassador to Belgium, who was made prisoner when trying to get from Bruges to Le Havre.

While these things were happening across the sea Commander Upton at Dover had summoned to him others of the Institution’s mechanics until he had seven. They were : Mr. J. A. Black, district engineer for the east coast ; Mr. J. Hepper, district engineer for the south coast; Mr. P. James, travelling mechanic for the east coast ; Mr. C. P. Cavell, motor-mechanic of the Walmer life-boat ; Mr. C. R. T. Stock, motor-mechanic of the Dover life-boat, ; Mr, H. Lister, reserve motor-mechanic of the Dover life-boat ; and Mr. C. C. Foster, reserve motor-mechanic. Commander Upton could call also on shipwrights and divers from the naval dockyard as he needed them. Yet more helpers came unexpectedly, for on the Saturday morning the Brixham fishing fleet arrived after a journey of 230 miles up Channel. It arrived only to find that its boats drew too much water and would be useless on the beaches, but among the crews were several men of the Torbay life-boat and they were added to the repairing party.

As the shelling and bombing at Dunkirk increased the beaches had become more and more hazardous by day, and about seven in the morning the small boats that had been working on them all night began to arrive at Dover for food, fuel, repair and rest. They were towed by the trawlers and drifters bringing their loads of troops. At once they were taken over by the repairing party, and their crews went to sleep. They slept in the sheds. They slept on the open quays. They even dropped asleep in the boats, and there they continued to sleep, undisturbed by the work which went on round and over them. It took on an average one hour to test and repair the engines of each boat. The most frequent cause of their failure was ropes and the clothing and web equipment of soldiers wrapped round their propeller. Until it could be arranged for divers to go down or for the boats to be lifted out of the water, the repairing party cut the ropes and clothing away with a sheath-knife fastener. to a broom-handle.

So the work went on from the first arrivals at seven in the morning until ten at night. The repairing party did not leave the dock, and the Navy brought them bread and butter and tinned beef, which they ate in relays at the dockside, so that all day the work never stopped. By dusk all the boats which had come in that day were ready to sail again, but had it been necessary the work would have gone on all night, One of the mechanics, when he arrived, had asked if he should look for lodgings or if he would be working night and day. The party had started their work on the Friday evening By the Tuesday it was finished ; the last ship had left Dunkirk Three days later the admiral commanding at Dover wrote to Commander Upton of his deep gratitude to him and his men for their invaluable advice and help ; and on the Tuesday morning the second in command of the small boats had said goodbye to them in an exquisitely English phrase.

“ I hope,” he said, “ to have you with me at my next evacuation.” The Committee of Management expressed their high appreciation of the able manner in which Captain E. S. Carver, R.D., R.N.R., chief inspector of life-boats, acted in this emergency.

OTHER SERVICES BY THE DOVER, RAMSGATE, MARGATE AND DUNGENESS LIFE-BOATS, DOVER

Three times during the evacuation, the reserve life-boat Agnes Cross - which was on temporary duty at Dover while the Dover life-boat was being overhauled - went to the help of troops coming across from Dunkirk, and for these three services a special letter of appreciation was sent to the crew of the Dover life-boat and to Dr. J. R. W. Richardson, the honorary secretary of the station.

At seven in the morning of the 31st of May, a message was received from the naval authorities that two drifters, which were loaded with troops, had grounded on the North Goodwins. A light westerly breeze was blowing, with a slight sea. At 7.40 the life-boat was launched. She found the drifters under way with a tug in attendance. On her way back she was hailed by a French destroyer and brought ashore from her three seriously wounded men. She returned to her station at 2.30 that afternoon. - Rewards, £4 7s. 6d.

At six in the evening of the 2nd of June, a message was received from the Leathercoat Point coastguard that the Swedish steamer Emma had been in collision with a French steamer two miles east-north-east of Leathercoat, and was listing heavily. An easterly breeze was blowing, with a slight sea. At 6.30 the life-boat was launched, and found the Emma sinking. She rescued six members of the crew of the steamer Andebec, who had been put on board to fix a wire, as the Emma sank. The crew of the Emma, 17 in number, had already been rescued by the steamer Hebi and they were transferred to the life-boat. She then saw a disabled motor boat drifting towards the Goodwin Sands. She went alongside and found fifteen British soldiers on board. They were exhausted. She brought them to Dover. The life-boat returned to her station at midnight. - Rewards, £7 17s. 6d.

At 1.15 in the morning of the 5th of June, a message was received from the Ramsgate coastguard that the hospital ship St. Andrew had reported an open boat loaded with French soldiers in distress two miles east-north-east of St. Margaret’s Bay. A gentle easterly breeze was blowing, with a slight sea. At 2.30 the life-boat was launched, and found the boat, four miles north-east of Leathercoat Point, with fifteen French soldiers on board, They had been rowing from Dunkirk since the previous day and all were exhausted. The life-boat took them on board and returned to her station at six that morning. - Partly permanent paid crew ; Rewards, £5.

RAMSGATE AND MARGATE

Both lifeboats, after returning from Dunkirk, carried out services.

At six in the morning of the 2nd of June, a message was received from the naval base at Ramsgate that an aeroplane had come down on the Goodwin Sands south-east of Manston. A light southerly breeze was blowing and the sea was smooth. The Ramsgate motor life-boat Prudential was launched, but when she was outside the harbour she was recalled, as news had come that an R.A.F. speed boat was going to the help of the aeroplane. The life-boat then helped to bring seriously wounded men ashore from vessels lying in the roads. She returned to her station at nine o’clock - Rewards, £4 10s. 6d.

At 11.15 on the night of the 4th of June, a message was received from the Ramsgate coastguard that a vessel was aground at South Calliper. A light north-east breeze was blowing, with a moderate sea. At 11.45 the Ramsgate life-boat Prudential was launched and found a Clan liner at anchor, waiting for a pilot. The steamer had seen flares nearby, and the life-boat searched until daybreak, when she found two small boats. One was a motor boat, the other a ship’s boat, which she was towing. They were barely making headway. Both were loaded with French soldiers, and had left Dunkirk at six o’clock the previous morning. There were sixty eight of them, and they had been without food or water for about twenty-two
hours. None of them knew anything of the sea, but they had managed to get the engines of the motor boat running. The life-boat took them onboard, cast the ship’s boat adrift, and, with the motor boat in tow, returned to Ramsgate. She was back at her station at 6.20 next morning. - Rewards, £9 16s. 6d.

At 6.14 in the morning of the 4th of June, a message was received from the Margate coastguard that a vessel had been mined five miles east-north-east of Foreness. A light north-east breeze was blowing, and the sea was smooth, but there was dense fog. At 6.25 the Margate motor life-boat The Lord Southborough (Civil Service No. 1) was launched, and found that boats from destroyers and other vessels had just picked up the last of the survivors of a French warship. She towed several of these boats to their ships. Four of them, belonging to the steamer King George V, she towed at the request of their crews to Margate. The fog was now very dense, and as she approached Margate, a torpedo boat, loaded with troops, loomed into sight. She was heading straight for some rocks. The life-boat was able to warn her just in time. After she had taken the King George V’s boats to Margate pier, she took their crews out to their steamer. Her captain then asked the life-boat to bring out a doctor, morphia, stretchers
and splints. This done, the life-boat went to H.M.S. Leda, which was filled with troops, took off sixty-five French sailors, who had been rescued from
the mined warship, and landed them. The life-boat then returned to her station at 11.35. At 12.30, at the request of the naval authorities, she again went to sea, with a naval officer on board, and visited vessels anchored off the harbour to leave instructions for them. She then returned to her station at two that afternoon. - Rewards, £6 4s. ; £3 2s. 6d.

DUNGENESS

This life-boat performed the final service to the men of Dunkirk.

At 6.10 in the evening of the 10th of June, a message was received from the Royal Naval Shore Signal Station that three British soldiers had just rowed in a small boat to the lightship, and wished to be landed. A light, southwest breeze was blowing and the sea was smooth. It was foggy. At 6.19 the motor life-boat Charles Cooper Henderson was launched, went to the lightship, and took the men on board. They were soldiers who had
escaped from France. They were only partly clothed and were very tired. The police were waiting with a taxi for them when the life-boat returned to
her station at 8.20. - Rewards, £16 5s. 6d.

MAY 31ST. - DOVER, KENT. The lifeboat landed wounded men from a French destroyer. For details see “ Evacuation of Men of the British Expeditionary Force and the French Army from Dunkirk,” page 79.