The Dunkirk Spirit

- Nic Compton

The mythology of the Dunkirk Little Ships still looms large, 77 years after they played their decisive role in the events of World War II. Around 700 privately owned boats took part in the Dunkirk evacuation of 26 May – 4 June 1940 and helped save over 338,000 Allied (mostly British and French) troops from being killed or captured by German forces. The operation has gone down in history as a miraculous escape in the face of seemingly certain defeat – and it played a great part in sustaining British national morale.

One of the men saved on the beaches of Dunkirk was a sergeant called Reg* who waded out up to his armpits and waited several days before he was finally picked up by the last wave of Little Ships heading back to Ramsgate. Tons of equipment was abandoned on the beach, most of it disabled so the Germans couldn’t use it. Decades later, he retold the story to his grandson and, to help the boy visualize the scene, he made a sketch of the yacht that had come to his rescue.

That story and that drawing of the boat that saved Reg’s life became seared in his grandson Andrew’s brain, and he swore that one day he would own a boat just like it. Of course, many impressionable boys have childhood fantasies that fall by the wayside in the rush and struggle of adult life, but not Andrew*. He and his brother Mel, both of Irish descent, set up a toiletries company in Kent which did rather well, and in his early 50s Andrew decided it was time to fulfil his boyhood dream.