All About History - Issue 111, 2021_

What If...

taken directly off the beaches, but the

problem was that the bigger naval and

transport ships couldn’t get close enough

• so initiative was needed. For example,
  the Royal Engineers used discarded
  lorries and drove them out into the water,
  where they were tethered together and
  a walkway built on top allowing them
  to be used as makeshift jetties. And
  a lot of smaller boats and ships were
  needed to lift people off the beaches, so
  plenty of boat owners around southern
  England found that their boats were
  suddenly whisked away. For me, the most
  impressive improvisation was by a man
  called Captain William Tennant, who was
  the senior naval officer ashore in Dunkirk.
  When he got there on 27 May he realised
  something had to be done to get people
  off in larger numbers, because significant
  numbers of soldiers were starting to arrive
  inside the Dunkirk perimeter. Captain
  Tennant spotted the large East Mole; this
  was a mile-long breakwater, it wasn’t a
  jetty. Ships never came alongside it. But
  Tennant brought a huge ferry alongside
  and soldiers found ways to clamber on
  board. It worked brilliantly.

How integral were the ‘little ships’ to

the evacuation?

There is an idea that ordinary people

got in their private little motor boats

and came over to Dunkirk, and to some

small extent that did happen. A man

called Charles Lightoller, who had been

the senior surviving officer on board the

Titanic, took his own little boat across.

But for the most part these ‘little ships’

were requisitioned in a hurry by the Royal

Navy and a lot of their owners thought

they had been stolen. As a result, there

were civil actions against the Navy for

people who lost their boats that carried

on for years afterwards! These little ships

started arriving in large numbers on 30

May. However, it should be remembered

that these ships were, for the most part,

not taking people back to England but

carrying them from the shore to the larger

ships. Their primary role was to ferry

people off the beaches.

Could the evacuation have failed?

There was every chance it could have

failed. Churchill initially hoped that

30,000 soldiers would get away and in

the end 338,000 made it off the beaches.

There were an incredible number of

things which allowed people to escape.

Firstly, there was the successful defence

of the roads to Dunkirk and then the

defence of the perimeter around Dunkirk

by both British and French troops – many

of whom were sacrificing themselves

for the greater good. Then there was

the generally calm sea and the frequent

cloud cover. These were strokes of luck,

as was the infamous ‘Halt Order’ that

stopped German tanks in their tracks

for several crucial days. A little-known

scientific process known as ‘degaussing’

kept hundreds of ships safe from German

magnetic mines. You’ve got the efforts of

the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy,

and the work of the little ships. People

often forget the work being done by the

Royal Air Force. All of these things came

together. They’re all immensely important

and without one or more of them it could

all have been different.

If Dunkirk had failed what could the

effect on the war have been?

Britain would have almost certainly been

forced to seek terms with Germany. Lord

Halifax was keen to pursue some kind of

negotiation. If Britain had made peace,

it would have become – as Churchill

said at the time – a slave state. It would

THE PAST

HITLER’S HALT ORDER

Just as his troops were ready to move onto

the beaches at Dunkirk, Adolf Hitler gave

the order for them to halt the advance and

left the attack to the Luftwaffe. For years

this order has generated controversy. It

was suspected for a long time that it might

have been given out a sense of mercy

and that Hitler suspected a show of force

would now  push Britain into making peace.

However, Hermann Goering insisted this

Luftwaffe be given the honour of finishing

off the British Army. Hitler relented and

halted the movement of the

Panzers outside Dunkirk.

Partly this was due

to tank losses and

the worry this

could leave the

left flank of

the advance

vulnerable. This

decision would

give the British

troops valuable

time to stage

the  evacuation.

1940

BELOW

Stranded troops

on the beaches at

Dunkirk during the

evacuation in 1940

1912-40

FROM THE TITANIC
TO DUNKIRK
One of the men who captained a ‘little
ship’ during the evacuation of British
troops at  Dunkirk was Charles Lightoller,
the surviving second officer of the Titanic,
which had sunk in 1912. Lightoller survived
the sinking when, as the ship plunged under
water, he found himself trapped but was
saved when a boiler explosion in the bowels
of the ship released a blast of hot air that
pushed him to the surface. He then stood
on top of an upturned lifeboat with some
other surviving passengers, constantly
shifting their weight so as not to capsize the
little boat, until they were rescued. Pictured
here with his son, who also assisted in
the evacuation, the 66-year-old Lightoller
managed to rescue some 130 British soldiers
from the beaches of Dunkirk
in his 58ft private motor
yacht, The Sundowner.
Lightoller would
live out the rest
of his days
running a small
boatyard and
constructing
boats for the
river police. In
1952 he would
pass away of
heart  disease.