Its crew wound up rescuing 500 troops on three cross-Channel trips. The London-based fireboat Massey Shaw set sail for Dunkirk to help fight fires.The ship is now a floating museum at the Gillingham Pier in Kent, England. Known as “the Heroine of Dunkirk,” the paddle steamer Medway Queen made the most round trips-seven-and rescued 7,000 men.The vessel limped back to port with a hole below the water line. It was attacked by six German planes on June 2. Royal Daffodil II, a ferry owned by the General Steam Navigation Company of London, evacuated 7,461 men in five trips between May 28 and June 2, the most of any passenger vessel.Some acted as shuttles ferrying soldiers from the beaches to deep-draft warships offshore while others, sailing under relentless attack from Luftwaffe aircraft, carried hundreds of soldiers apiece back to England to fight another day: ![]() Manned by naval officers, ratings and experienced volunteers-mostly fishermen, a few yachtsmen and one legendary seaman-they navigated the shallow waters into Dunkirk and managed to rescue some 338,000 soldiers from advancing German forces. Somehow, defeat had turned to victory, of sorts.īetween May 27 and June 4, a ragtag fleet of 850 barges, ferries, fishing boats, lifeboats and pleasure craft, all summoned by the small-craft section of the British Ministry of Shipping, set sail from Ramsgate and made its way 40 kilometres across the English Channel. Winston Churchill called the 1940 evacuation of British and Allied troops from the French port at Dunkirk “a colossal military disaster.” He also called it “a miracle of deliverance.”
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