REVIEWS The Little Ships of Dunkirk, by Christi an Brann (Collectors' Books Limited, Bradley Lodge, Kemble, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, 1989, 240pp, illus, indexes; available in the US from NMHS , $47.50ppd) Through the long time the story will be told; Long centuries of prai se on Engli sh lips, Of courage godlike and of hearts of go ld , Off Dunquerque beaches in the little ships.
-from ''To the Seamen," by John Masefield In the last weeks of May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force, which a little over half a year before had embarked for Europe at the outsetofWorld War II, had been pushed back in defeat to the port of Dunkirk, France, on the Dover Strait. The victorious Germans threatened three sides, and the sea on the fourth. Close to half a million men, including portions of the French army, were caught in what appeared to be an inescapable trap. On May 26, though no formal plan had been drawn up, the British Admiralty in London launc hed Operation Dynamo to rescue as much of the BEF as they could. Vice Admiral Ramsey, who was in charge of the operations, expected at best a two-day window of opportunity before the Germans overran the perimeter. Given the shortage of destroyers and troop transports, and the bombed-out condition of the Dunkirk harbor faci lities, they wou ld be lucky to save 45,000 men . As things turned out, two unexpected factors saved the bulk of the BEF. First, the Germans, who were far ahead of their supply lines, let up on their offensive, g iving the British until June 5 to get their men off the beaches. Second, the Royal Navy di scovered they could step up the pace of the evacuation if they embarked the soldiers directly from the beaches rather than only from the mol e itself. But the waters were shallow for a considerable distance off, and there weren't enough small craft to ferry the soldiers out to the deep-draft rescue ships lying offshore. What to do? Within hours the call went out to the owners of small craft on the east coast of England. Fishing drifters and trawlers, tugboats, Thames barges, motorboats, sailing yachts, canal boats, excursion steamers, RNLI lifeboats. Anything that 38
could float, anything that could cross the Dover Strait, was begged, borrowed, or commandeered and sent over to Dunkirk. Some were taken over by Royal Navy sailors and officers; others were manned by their civilian owners and crews. Nobody argued about charter rates or liability insurance or who was going to pay for the gas . A fleet of approximately 700 small craft made the crossing and participated in the evacuation. Close to 350,000 soldiers of the BEF and French army were rescued, a good part ferried from the beach and thou sands transported directly across the strait, despite the sometimes foul weather, by this extemporaneous fleet. Approximately I 00 of the "Little Ships" were lost during Operation Dynamo. They were wrecked on the beaches or lost at sea in stormy weather; they were bombed, strafed, and shot up by shore batteries. But most of the fleet survived what has come to be seen as Britain 's victory in defeat, and 50 years later several hundred are sti ll aro und . The Little Ships of Dunkirk was pub1ished to celebrate the 50th an niversary of Operation Dynamo. A project of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, it is a "then-and-now" look at the vessels owned by the members. It includes the technica l particulars of each Little Ship, a capsule hi story of its role at Dunkirk, its hi story since 1940, and photographs showing ho w the vessels appea red before and during wartime, and now. The book is not great literature, but it is in places, stirring drama. And for boat lovers it is evidence of one of the principles of maritime preservation: that pride in a boat's accompli shments as much as pride in the boat itse lf is one of the guarantees of the boat 's longterm survival. PETER H. SPECTRE A contributing editor to WoodenBoat
magazine, Mr. Spectre kindly granted permission to excerpt this review ji"om a larger review in WoodenBoat 94. Dunkirk; The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler, Norman Gelb (William Morrow & Co., New York, 1989, 352pp, illus, index, $22.95 hb) This engrossing narrative very nearly li ves up to the ambitious claim of its s ubtitle, for the author has chosen to seek out the origins of World War II, the emergence of the lead ing protagoni sts of what might be ca lled Part I of the war (which may be said to have ended with
Dunkirk), and the unfolding catastrophe that landed the British Expeditionary Force almost out of gas, ammunition and food, and almost beyond hope on the Dunkirk beaches in May 1940. All this he accomplishes in brisk narrative sty le and with considerable authority. Even veterans of the war often do not have a clear picture of what was going on, and Norman Gelb has done history and us a very real service by developing in lively, sometimes fascinating detail the terror, horror and confusion of the overwhelming military defeat that led up to the miracle of Dunkirk. He has to deal very selectively with the abundant material, but in this reviewer's opinion he has mastered that material with insight into the movement of men 's minds and machines , and an eye for the telling detail. The German General Heinz Guderian has written a brilliant account of the campaign from his perspective as its principal executor, and Britain's Winston Churchill (who was, incidentally, a first-class military historian as well as an inspired though occasionally nutty war leader) has written with superb feeling of the British side-indeed he articulated it at the time in some of the most memorable prose in our language. But Gelb, I feel, alone of participants and students of the campaign gives proper weight to Lord Gort's tank charge at Arras, citing thi s as the compelling reason for the halt order given the Tenth Panzer Division which could have motored into Dunkirk admiring the seas ide scenery out of open hatches (thus foreclosing the evacuation) if it had not been ordered into reserve by a shook-up German High Command. Erwin Rommel , the General whose Seventh Panzer Division was hit by the British charge, showed other incidents (and more than incidents) of panicky overreaction toward the end of the war, though thi s flaw did not come to light in hi s brilliant campaigns in the Western Desert a year later, which earned him fame as the Desert Fox. Now if Manstein or Balck had had command of the afflicted German division ... Gelb does not pursue thi s question, but bully for him for bringi ng it out. The account of Operation Dynamo itself moves forward in a well-documented context of what was going on with the Allied armies and ministries , though one can always think of scenes one wow ld have added. For the human side, in tlhe boats and indeed in the water, nothing one feels will ever match Walter SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990