- At 1.15 in the afternoon of Thursday, the 30th of
May, 1940, the Ministry of Shipping called up the
Institution on the telephone and asked it to send at once
to Dover as many of its life-boats as possible. The
Ministry was told that they would be sent.
-
- That was all; no other information was sought or
given; but it was easy to guess for what those life-boats
were wanted. Three weeks before, on the 10th of May, the
German armies had invaded Holland and Belgium, and the
French and British armies had moved forward into Belgium
to meet them. Events had followed one another with
terrible and increasing speed. By the fifteenth the
Germans had broken through the French line and had turned
towards the English Channel. By the twenty-third they had
reached it at the mouth of the Somme. So doing they had
divided the British army from the French and had left the
British no way of retreat but by the sea. It had three
ports Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. The Germans took
Boulogne on the twenty-third, and Calais three days
later. They were pressing hard on the British army’s
right, flank. On the twenty-seventh they forced the
surrender of the Belgian army on its left flank, They
were now attacking it in front and on both flanks. Behind
it was the sea and only one port was left to it -
Dunkirk. Already the Germans had announced that the iron
ring had closed round it, and the Prime Minister had
warned the House of Commons to be prepared for hard and
heavy tidings. Such was the state of the war in France
and Flanders when, on the 30th of May, the Ministry of
Shipping asked for life-boats to be sent to Dover.
Certainly it was not difficult to guess why they were to
go.
-
- Four days earlier - though this was not known at the
time - the Navy had started to bring off troops from
Dunkirk, but town and port were now almost destroyed.
German bombers had descended on them in hundreds and set
them ablaze. There remained nothing alongside which ships
could berth except, a wooden breakwater. It was only five
feet wide and had never been intended for such a purpose,
but it was all now left in the port to embark an army.
Besides that breakwater were the beaches, sixteen miles
of flat sand and sand-dunes stretching eastwards from
Dunkirk to Nieuport. They were as difficult as beaches
could be for such a task. Even at high water ships could
not get within half a mile of them. But if the army were
to be embarked those beaches must be used. It was to
carry the men from them to the waiting ships that the
Ministry of Shipping had asked all the ports of England,
from Hull to Southampton, to send every boat that could
reach Dover within twenty-four hours.
-
- As soon as the Institution received that call it
telephoned to its eighteen stations from Gorleston in
Norfolk, 110 miles north of Dover, to Shoreham Harbour,
in Sussex, 80 miles to the west. Each station was asked
to send its life-boat to Dover at once for special duty
under the Admiralty. She was to take a full crew, full
fuel-tanks, and a grass warp for towing.
-
The Crew of
the Prudential
-
- Photo
East Kent Maritime Trust
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|
Back Row, Left to Right
- Edward Cooper, Ernest Attwood (Mechanic),
Alfred Liddle, John Hawkes, Thomas
Goldfinch.
Front Row, Left to
Right - Charles Knight, Alfred Moody (Ass.
Coxswain), Howard Knight (Coxswain), Thomas Read
(Ass. Mechanic).
|
-
- While this urgent message was being sent to the
life-boats along those 190 miles of coast, two of them
were already on their way to Dunkirk. That morning the
naval officers - in - charge at Ramsgate and Margate had
asked their life-boats if they would go, and both crews
had said at once that they would, The Prudential, of
Ramsgate, was the first away. She left at 2.20 in the
afternoon. Coxswain Howard Primrose Knight was in command
of her, and he had a crew of eight men. They had been
given gas masks and steel helmets, and the life-boat was
loaded with four coils of grass warp and cans of fresh
water for the troops. She took in tow eight boats, most
of them wherries, manned by eighteen naval men, and when
she reached Dunkirk her part was to tow the wherries
between the beaches and the waiting ships.
-
- The Margate life-boat, The Lord Southborough (Civil
Service No. 1) was under the command of Coxswain Edward
Drake Parker. He took ten men with him, two more than his
usual crew. They were given steel helmets, food and
cigarettes, and they left, so the naval officer at
Margate said, in the best of spirits at 5.30 in the
afternoon. The life-boat went in company of a Dutch
barge, commanded by a naval officer, and the barge towed
her.
-
- The two life-boats had a journey of about fifty miles
by a way which had been hurriedly swept through the
mine-fields when the direct way from Dover to Dunkirk
along the French coast came under the fire of German guns
at Calais. Those who made that journey were amazed and
uplifted by the sight of the crowded waters, with their
double stream of traffic, ships and boats of every kind
hurrying out to the dangers of the beaches, and those
others on their way back to England, their decks loaded
with troops.
-
- They are at all times difficult waters with their
shallows and strong tides. Now the narrow channels of
deeper water through which ships could pass were
unlighted; German submarines and fast motor boats were
moving in them; German aeroplanes were sowing them with
mines; already they were studded with wrecks. The air
above was even more dangerous. Every five minutes German
bombers came over to attack Dunkirk or the beaches or the
waters beyond, and by night if a motor-boat showed no
more than a glimmer of light on her instrument-panel it
was enough to bring on her a salvo of bombs.
-
- There were other perils. Three days before men in
England had anxiously watched the reports of a storm
which was coming in from the Atlantic and had wondered
which way it would move. Mercifully it had turned
northwards up the west coast of Ireland, and no more than
the fringe of it had touched the Straits of Dover, but
this had been enough to raise a sea at Dunkirk which had
made the beaches dangerous. Now a light variable wind was
blowing from the west and the surf had gone down.
-
- THE RAMSGATE
LIFE-BOAT.
-
- The Ramsgate life-boat reached Dunkirk at eight in
the evening. There the heavy black smoke from the burning
oil-tanks hung low above the beaches and the sea. She
went on another two miles to Malo les Bains and lay
alongside a Dutch coaster until it was night. The
coxswain then sent off three of his wherries, each with
one life-boatman on board. The men rowed ashore, called
into the darkness until they were answered, and filled
their boats with men. The coxswain now sent off three
more of his wherries, with twelve of the naval men on
board, some to man them, others to be landed and to help
in pushing the boats off the beach. They were to follow
the three life-boatmen, now pulling to the shore for the
second time, but they must have missed them in the
darkness and gone ashore elsewhere, for they never
returned. The coxswain then manned a seventh wherry with
three more naval men, and the four wherries plied between
beach and life-boat, gathering men, putting them aboard
the life-boat, returning for more.
-
- Once, as they came ashore, a voice called to them, "I
cannot see who you are. Are you a naval party?" He was
answered, "No, sir, we are men of the crew of the
Ramsgate life-boat." The voice called back, "Thank you,
and thank God for such men as you have this night proved
yourselves to be. There is a party of fifty Highlanders
coming next."
-
- It was slow and hard work, even to life-boatmen well
used to managing small boats on a beach. They would take
the wherries in stern first, and hold them in the surf
until the soldiers came. There was no rush nor scramble.
The soldiers moved into the sea to their officers’
orders, wading out waist-deep. One man only could climb
over the stern at a time. Eight were a full load.
-
- The life-boat herself could take on board, in a calm
sea, 160 men close-packed. As the wherries filled her,
she in turn put off to a motor ship that lay further out
So all night the work went on, and before day broke the
life-boat and her wherries had brought off some 800 men.
By this time the motor ship herself was filled, and she
made for England, but, her engines had only two cylinders
working and her master was doubtful if she would arrive.
Two of the life-boat’s crew had been helping on
board, and they went with her. As soon as it was light
the coxswain took the life-boat inshore to look for his
three missing wherries. He found only one, lying empty on
the beach, one of many boats washed up and
abandoned.
-
- With the coming of day the shelling and bombing
increased. Now, too, the wind had freshened. It had
veered to north-west and was blowing right onshore. A
swell was making and boats were capsizing in the surf.
But over the sand-dunes the troops came in unbroken flow
and the life-boatmen baled out their wherries and got to
work again. The sea, like the beach, was littered with
wreckage and was thick with oil from bombed and broken
motor-boats. With the rising wind and surf, with the
wreckage, with the oil that clogged their oars, the men
found it impossible any longer to row the wherries.
Instead the life-boat, lying eighty yards off shore,
dropped them down to it on ropes, each wherry with two
men on board, and hauled them out again. They came
loaded, shipping water, the soldiers baling with their
steel helmets to keep them afloat.
-
The
Prudential
 - Photo
East Kent Maritime Trust
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- The life-boat found time also to give tows to other
boats that had broken down or that could not get through
the surf. Once the coxswain saw soldiers on the beach
tying to launch a whaler, and two boys helping them. They
launched her, but they could do no more. They had only
three broken oars and the surf began to fill her. The
life-boat ran down to them, threw a rope and towed them
out to a Dutch schuyt. She was part of the Dunkirk fleet,
with an English officer in command and the white ensign
flying. She took the soldiers on board, and her commander
gave the two French boys food and drink. They looked not
more than fourteen years old. Sailors baled out their
whaler and the boys went back. The last the life-boatmen
saw of them they were landing on the beach alone.
-
- So the morning passed. In the afternoon a destroyer
asked the life-boat to go to La Panne, six miles to the
eastward. She had now only three of her wherries left.
The others, broken and leaking, had one by one been left
on the beach. And of the twenty-seven men who had sailed
from Ramsgate twenty-four hours before only ten - seven
life-boatmen and three naval men - were still with
her.
-
- At La Panne she found destroyers and a monitor
anchored as close as possible to the shore. Bombers
continually attacked them and the ships answered with
their guns. Bombs were falling on the beaches and in the
sea, and from the beaches small boats were struggling
out, through the surf. Some came through, half-full of
water. Others were thrown back. The life-boat went to
their help and towed many of them to the monitor and
destroyers. This work continued through that Friday
afternoon, through the evening and into the night. During
the night the last of the wherries was broken by a piece
of shell.
-
- It was now the third day since the life-boat had left
Ramsgate, and she had helped to bring off some 2,800 men.
Her crew were exhausted, her wherries gone; and at 1.30
on the Saturday morning she sailed for Ramsgate. When she
came home she had been away for over forty hours. For
thirty of those hours she had worked on the beaches; for
nearly all that time she had been under fire; for two
nights her crew had been without sleep.
-
- THE MARGATE
LIFE-BOAT
-
- The Margate life-boat reached the beaches some hours
later than the Ramsgate boat, for the barge that had her
in tow went on along the coast from Dunkirk fifteen miles
eastward to Nieuport. As they went the crews could smell
Dunkirk burning. It was midnight, when they reached
Nieuport, and they knew at once the difficulties awaiting
them, for the barge ran aground on a sand-bank. The
life-boat was bumping on the sand, but was still afloat,
She tried to tow off the barge. This failed, and all that
she could do was to run out an anchor for her and leave
her to haul herself off by it when the tide should flow.
Then, with an anchor of her own out astern, her engine
running dead slow, and the barge’s commander wishing
her good luck, she felt her way through the darkness and
the shallows towards the shore. Her crew heard a voice
calling and as they got near they could dimly see a dark
mass above the white edge of the surf. It was the waiting
men.
-
- They were eighty Frenchmen, and by the time the
life-boatmen had dragged them all aboard the coxswain was
glad that he had brought those two extra men with him.
The life-boat drew over four feet of water, and the
soldiers had to wade out until they were up to their
arm-pits in the sea. As they stood beside the boat her
rail was four feet above their heads. To haul them up
those four feet - weary men, heavy with water - was work
to exhaust the strongest.
-
- The life-boat took the eighty out to the stranded
barge and went in to the beaches again. More men were
waiting. This time they were from the Border Regiment.
She loaded up with them, and their weight sank her until
she was hard on the sands. It was now low water and she
waited until the tide flowed and she floated again. Then
she took the men to the barge, and for the third time
returned to the beaches. A British officer swam out to
her and asked that he might guide her some way along the
shore to his own men; but here the beaches were still
thick with troops waiting, and the coxswain would not go
elsewhere.
-
- Out through the surf and darkness they crowded, not
knowing how deep they would have to go before they
reached the boat. Some had taken off their boots and
trousers, but there was hardly a man who had not his
rifle with him. One small soldier waded out holding high
his rifle - and a banjo. As he stood beside the boat,
with little more than his head above water, the coxswain
told him to drop them and come aboard. He dropped the
rifle. He held the banjo. Two minutes later he had
squatted on the deck and was strumming and humming to
himself.
-
- Day was now breaking and the life-boat was told to
take her men not to the barge but to the destroyer
Icarus, which lay some distance farther out. This she
did, and went backwards and forwards between the
destroyer and the still crowded beaches until her
coxswain had lost count of her journeys. Once, as she lay
alongside, the officer on the bridge shouted to her to
cast off. She obeyed, and at the same moment a flight of
German aeroplanes came out of the clouds. For a few
seconds the life-boatmen were conscious only of bursting
bombs and machine-guns firing. Then the noise was over
and they found themselves still unhurt. When next they
went alongside the destroyer it was not bombs that
descended on them, but a large pot of stew. They could
not pause for a meal, but from time to time as they
worked they dipped their fingers in the pot and ate a
mouthful.
-
- Of their work the commander of the Icarus wrote
later, "The, magnificent behaviour of the crew of the
Margate life-boat who, with no thought of rest, brought
off load after load of soldiers from Dunkirk, under
continuous shelling, bombing and aerial machine-gunfire,
will be an inspiration to us as long as we live,"
-
- Here at Nieuport as farther west at Malo les Bains,
the freshening wind had raised a swell, and by seven
o’clock in the morning the surf was so heavy that
the life-boat could no longer go near the shore. Instead,
on the orders of the destroyer, she went up and down
outside the surf searching for men who had put off on
rafts or wreckage. She rescued many in this way. All the
time shells and bombs were bursting on the sands, and
aeroplanes were diving to machine-gun the boats and the
patient troops.
-
- The life-boatmen saw a whaler and a motor boat turn
over and sink. Boats lay wrecked all along the line of
surf. Others were half buried in the sand and soldiers
were labouring to dig and drag them out. At the
water’s edge cattle wandered. But so far as the
life-boatmen could see not a boat except their own was
afloat. She was alone, and men were wading out to her.
Some of them were knocked over by the surf; struggled,
and failed to rise. Others stepped suddenly from the
shallow water covering the many sand-banks into the
deeper channels between them and disappeared. The
life-boat saw men drowning close to her, and could not
reach them. To remain near the beach was to tempt them to
their death. She drew farther off and made westwards to
Dunkirk. As she passed Malo les Bains her crew saw, high
on the beach, the charred and twisted remains of their
own familiar pleasure steamer, Crested Eagle, that used
to ply between Margate and Tower Bridge. On her way she
rescued two officers and fifteen sailors all that were
left of a naval party of 150 who had been working on the
beaches for four days. They had found a whaler lying in
the sand, full of water, and had emptied her. She had no
oars and no rowlocks, but they had collected oars
scattered about the beach and had lashed them to the
gunwhales with pieces of rope. When the life-boat met
them it was nearly nine in the morning, and since
daybreak they had been trying desperately to row out to
one of the distant ships. In that wind and surf the
life-boat could do no more, and she made for Margate,
taking with her those last seventeen, that she had
rescued. She arrived at three in the afternoon on Friday,
the 31st of May. She had then been away for nearly
twenty-four hours, and brought off the beaches Some six
hundred men.
-
- AWARD OF DISTINGUISHED
SERVICE MEDALS.
-
- Such was the share of the Ramsgate and Margate
life-boats in the glory of the Dunkirk fleet which
snatched over 300,000 men out of the hand of the enemy as
it was closing triumphantly on them. Both the coxswains,
Howard Knight and Edward Parker, were awarded the
Distinguished Service Medal for their "gallantry and
determination," and the house-flag of the Institution
which had flown at the mast-head of the Ramsgate
life-boat through those forty hours now hangs in the
Ramsgate parish church of St. George.
-
The Flag of the
Prudential
 - Photo Ralph Hoult
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- THE INSTITUTION‘S
REWARDS.
-
- To the Ramsgate and Margate life-boat stations the
Committee of Management sent letters conveying their
"warm appreciation of the magnificent work done by the
crews on this occasion, which for ever will remain an
outstanding example of the courage of the life-boatmen of
these islands." The Institution also made the following
awards:
-
- TO
RAMSGATE:
-
- To the coxswain and each member of the crew the
thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum: HOWARD P.
C. KNIGHT, coxswain, ALFRED H. MOODY, acting
second-coxswain, ERNEST C. W. ATTWOOD, motor-mechanic,
THOMAS H. READ, assistant motor-mechanic, ALFRED D.
LIDDLE, CHARLES E. KNIGHT, EDWARD C. COOPER, JOHN T.
HAWKES, THOMAS H. GOLDSMITH, life-boatmen.
-
- To the coxswain and each member of his crew a reward
of £8 3s., being double the scale reward of £4
1s. 6d.; standard rewards to crew £32 12s.;
additional rewards to crew £40 15s.; total rewards
£73 7s.
-
- An inscribed metal plaque was presented to the
coxswain and each member of the crew by the Prudential
Assurance Company, donors of the life-boat.
-
- TO
MARGATE:
-
- To the coxswain and each member of the Crew the
thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum: EDWARD D.
PARKER, coxswain, THOMAS D. HARMAN, second-coxswain,
HENRY PARKER, bowman, EDWARD J. JORDAN, motor-mechanic,
WILLIAM B. MACKIE, assistant motor-mechanic, DENNIS
PRICE, signalman, JOHN LETLEY, ALFRED MORRIS, ARTHUR
LADD, EDWARD E. PARKER and WILLIAM HOPPER,
life-boatmen.
-
- To the coxswain and each member of his crew a reward
of £4 8s., being double the scale reward of £2
4s.; standard rewards to crew and helpers, £26 4s.;
additional rewards to crew £26 8s.; total rewards
£52 12s.
-
-
- * From
the account in Storm on the Waters.
- The Story of the Life-boat Service in the War of
l939-1945. by Charles Vince.
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