The Dunkirk evacuation relied heavily on civilian vessels known as the "Little Ships" to rescue over 338,000 Allied soldiers trapped on the beaches. These included pleasure boats, barges, tugs, and other small craft from London and southern England that could navigate close to shore. Despite intense attacks from the Luftwaffe, the Little Ships bravely transported soldiers from the beaches to larger ships waiting offshore over the course of a week in May 1940. Many Thames vessels participated, including the paddle steamer Medway Queen which rescued 7,000 men and shot down three German fighters. Sailing barges also contributed, though nine were lost, demonstrating the heroic efforts of these civilian crews.

1. DUNKIRK’S ‘LITTLE SHIPS’
Gustav Milne
When discussing the role of shipping in WW2, images of battleships and U-boats spring
readily to mind. But it’s worth remembering that for ports like London, with a busy
commercial river all the vessels on the tideway– boats, barges, coasters, trawlers, tugs,
pleasure steamers, merchantmen – had key roles to play, in just the same way that
London’s Blitzed civilian population suddenly found themselves on the front line.
(left) Dunkirk ‘Little Ships’ from the
Thames under tow
OPERATION DYNAMO
Today, we look at one of the
major contributions that civilian
craft made to the War Effort,
focussing on the Dunkirk
evacuation of 1940. In May of
that year, the German army had
invaded France, and the Allied
forces were all too rapidly
overwhelmed. The British
Expeditionary Force found itself
trapped on the exposed coast
near Dunkirk, with the German
Army encircling them on land and
the Luftwaffe attacking them from
the air. An emergency evacuation was hurriedly planned (code-named Operation Dynamo).
This involved privately-owned ships, boats and barges from the coasts and rivers of
southern England being requisitioned or volunteered for service to work alongside the Royal
Navy, in the seemingly impossible task of rescuing the Allied armies at the eleventh hour.
The beaches of Dunkirk were wide and flat, and so large vessels could not get close enough
to the shore to lift the troops out. What was desperately required were many smaller,
shallow-draft vessels that could sail right up to the troops wading out into the sea, pick them
up and transfer them to the larger vessels moored offshore in the deeper water.
The story of what happened next is well-known, a
tale of near tragedy turned into a near triumph.
This was thanks to the extraordinary courage of
the crews that manned the armada of 311 ‘Little
Ships’ (including the fireboat Massey Shaw
(shown left), 113 trawlers and 34 tugboats. But
the entire operation was conducted under
ferocious fire from the Luftwaffe, who made no
distinction between soldiers or civilians, between
Naval vessels or fishing boats. Somehow, from
26th May to the 4th June 1940, a staggering total
of 338,266 soldiers were taken off the beach
often in unarmed boats from an ad hoc fleet
pulled together from London and the southern
coastal towns.
(Right) Massey Shaw fireboat return to London, June
1940

2. The ‘LITTLE SHIPS’
A typical example of such small craft was Eothen,
a launch that, before WW2, lived quietly on the
Upper Thames. But she had been converted from
a decommissioned Naval motor launch (ML286)
that had spent the Great War hunting U-Boats in
the North Sea: she therefore enjoys the distinction
of serving in two World Wars. Sadly, she now lies
abandoned in Isleworth, where the Thames
Discovery Programme team have been carefully
recording her remains.
(Right) Eothen/ML286 at Isleworth
Other pleasure craft pressed into active service were the rather larger paddle steamers and
passenger launches. Once war was declared, several of these vessels had been
requisitioned for war work as minesweepers or floating Anti-Aircraft batteries.
Paddle Steamer Medway Queen repurposed as a minesweeper, 1940
The Medway Queen, shortly after her refitting for minesweeping duties, made no less than
seven trips to Dunkirk, helping to rescue some 7,000 soldiers. For good measure she also
downed three German fighters. Now she has been elegantly restored in Gillingham.
Other passenger
vessels sent to
Dunkirk included a
contingent from
the Thames:
Abercorn the
Viscount, the
Viscountess and
Hurlingham.
(Left) Abercorn on a
pleasure cruise
Geoff Satter/ Joseph
Mears

3. Also at Dunkirk
was her sister
ship, the
Marchioness
(1926) who
had been
converted to a
Hospital Ship
during the war
as well as
serving with
Operation
Dynamo. She
survived the
war and
returned to peaceful passenger duties on the Thames but suffered an horrendous collision
on the river in August 1989, sinking with the loss of 51 lives (Above).
THAMES SAILING BARGES
The Thames sailing barge (TSB) with its readily identifiable sprit-sail rig was a great work
horse of Thames-Medway and neighbouring waterways in the pre-war days. It could carry a
sizeable cargo, only needed a very small crew, and could make good petrol-free speed
under sail. It has a broad flat bottom, and is thus well suited to working off wide shallow
beaches, such as those at Dunkirk, where deep-draught shipping could simply not operate. It
is recorded that sixteen Thames Sailing Barges set out to do their bit in the summer of 1940.
The exploits of the craft and their crews have been recorded in Frank Carr’s ‘Sailing Barges’
(1989: pp 357-374), a report which makes sobering reading. But nine were lost on active
service, a heavy price. The names of these humble but heroic coastal craft deserve to be
remembered alongside those of mighty battleships: the lost barges were the Aidie, Barbara
Jean, Duchess, Doris, Ethel Everard, Lady Roseberry, Lark, Valonia and Royalty.
But what of those that did
make it home?, Over
thirty years ago, David
and Elizabeth Woods
recorded the location of
the survivors in 1987, in
their catalogue, ‘Last
Berth of the Sailor Man’,
the term often used for
those barges. This listing
is updated here. Pudge is
still active in Maldon
(seen here) and Greta in
Whitsable while Glenway
and Tollesbury are under
restoration. Thyra has
been broken up, as has
H.A.C and Beatrice
Maud
TSB Pudge at Maldon
(CITiZAN)

4. To end this section, we retell the story of Ena, based on the account from Julian Wilson. Ena
was ordered to sail to Dunkirk, and made the 100-mile journey, in spite of air attacks and the
constant threat of mines. After heroic work on the beaches, with the German army closing in.
Alfred Page, Ena’s skipper, was ordered to abandon her alongside another sailing barge,
the H.A.C. The crews then escaped back to England on a fast minesweeper.
No sooner had they left, than thirty men of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment arrived on La
Panne beach. They had been fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep the Germans at
bay for as long as they could. Now, with the evacuation virtually over, they could not believe
their luck when they saw two barges sitting there, in seaworthy condition. They took
possession of H.A.C., while Colonel McKay with men of the 19th Field Regiment, Royal
Artillery boarded the Ena. Meanwhile, Captain Atley of the East Yorkshire Regiment was on
the mole at Dunkirk and together with one of his men, quickly made a raft. Using shovels,
they rowed out to Ena. and helped 36 other men on board including three wounded. By 8am
both barges were under way. In spite of enemy bombardment and machine-gun fire they
raced across the Channel under sail, even though there were no naval personnel on board.
Eventually, the Ena made it all the way to Margate.
But now, eighty years
later, Ena lies abandoned
and derelict near Hoo on
the River Medway, a sad
end to an eventful life.
Unlike her sister vessels,
Greta and Tollesbury,
she is not included in our
national Historic Ships
List At the very least, she
should be fully surveyed
and her subsequent fate
monitored, out of respect
for the lives she saved 80
years ago.
Adam & Robert Kerry