Admiralty records concerning Operation Dynamo and the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, covering 1940–1941.
Source: The National Archives, Kew, ADM 199/792. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
1 matching pages. OCR may contain transcription errors.
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Dynams 46. |
Unformatted machine-generated OCR for document page 205.
Dynams 46.
N°.4.
253
H.M.S. "LYNX".
251
31st May, 1940.
The Commander M/S,
Dover.
ze NAUTILUS
Sir,
I have the honour to make the following report:-
71
At 1700 on Tuesday 28th May H.M.T. "Nautilus" and "Comfort"
left Dover under my directions en route for La Panne.
At 0030 the 29th May in vicinity of Kwinte Bank Buoy we
heard cries for help and "Nautilus" picked up six survivors from
Destroyer "Wakeful" which had been torpedoed. "Comfort" picked up
sixteen, including her Captain.
I instructed "Comfort" to return to Dover and land survivors.
Was unable to transfer any of the survivors to "Comfort" owing to
weather conditions.
"Nautilus" proceeded to La Panne arriving there at 0540.
Closed "Calcutta" and transferred "Wakeful's" survivors to
her.
29/5
"Nautilus" then proceeded closer in shore and started
ferrying soldiers to the H.19 and when she left at noon we ferried
them to H.05 ("Greyhound").
Panne
At 1630 with 150 B.E.F. on board German bombers came along
and in the endeavour to hit "Sandown" and "Greyhound" straddled the
"Nautilus". Although not actually hit the engines and steering
gear of "Nautilus" were put completely out of action and the vessel
began making water rapidly.
"Nautilus" managed to get alongside Destroyer "Greyhound"
and embark troops. In the middle of this the "Greyhound" was
damaged by a bomb and her Captain decided to weigh anchor and proceed
towards Dover.
Decided on consulting Skipper of "Nautilus" and Captain
of "Greyhound" to abandon "Nautilus".
The Skipper poured petrol on C.B's and set them on fire.
He then set his bunk on fire pouring more petrol on same endeavouring
to set "Nautilus" completely on fire, as being a very stoutly built
wooden ship she would not sink.
About ten soldiers were wounded by bombs falling around
"Nautilus" but none fatally. None of the crew were injured.
Two of "Nautilus" crew were left behind as crew of a
large ship's lifeboat which was working in conjunction with a flat
bottomed motor punt.
The "Nautilus" transferred between 700 and 800 B.E.F. to
the two destroyers.
The crew of the "Nautilus" were grand, in particular the us
Skipper, 2nd engineer, and the cook.
(Continued over).