TNA ADM 334 83

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pubs around the harbour in about two minutes, and a seething
crowd gathered round the Naval Office near the entrance but
this proved to be a pure navy job and they were only taking
the minimum number necessary so as to have more room for the
troops, only Naval Officers were chosen and a very small
proportion of those available at that. The correspondent
who had been coming with me, a competent motor boat man
himself, had seen there was little chance of our getting away
on Saturday and jumped another boat which got across that night
so he got his real experience all right, I may say most of the
correspondents down there went across at least once.
By Tuesday morning, 4th June, the real operations were
over and senior officers were turning up from different places
to try and straighten out records, etc., among them the
Commodore from Sheerness who had looked after us thoroughly
there. I was coming along to the exit from the Harbour from
my wretched house boat to lunch on shore and this Commodore
was standing near the entrance talking to a post-Captain whom
I did not know by sight; when I was within 20 yards of them
the Commodore happened to look in my direction, promptly
One nice piece of as shifting was done by
waing the slight breeze, which was stonger than the
tide act against it, to take this hulk across 2/3 rdo
of the harbour with oput her within 2 yards of
where the was to tie up on the other side.
had some anxious moments half through
this evolution, butwas very proud whom it anceeded.
pointed towards me with a very pleasant smile, said loudly
and firmly "Constant Nymph". Considering that he had exchanged
about 20 words with me a week before when busily engaged over
all the possible wants of 20 or 30 motor boats, this officer
must have a memory for faces and names that would leave an
experienced hotel keeper blushing in despair. As my boat
would not move, except by manhandling, and we often had to
shift in this manner for one reason and another, and the show
seemed to be over, I busied myself in trying to obtain a
passage for myself and crew back to Sheerness as & large
number of boats had already gone and quite a lot of drifters
etc. were laid up in the Harbour, while the crews had their
three days Dunkirk leave.
The difference in the town was most marked, naval
uniforms were becoming comparatively rare. Unfortunately
a lot of the senior officers concerned with the motor boat
side seemed to have gone on leave by this time and it was
not until Wednesday evening that I could get any useful
information. I then found that an officer was supposed to
be coming over from Sheerness on Thursday, 6th June, to
take a boat named Cairngorm back to Sheerness and it was
suggested that I might accompany him if the boat could be
found, apparently two officers were looking for her at the
moment as nobody knew where she was.
On returning to my boat I found that Cairngorn was
lying amongst two or three others just astern of me and had
received a nasty bump on the starboard buby which had
smashed gerabohed quite a bit of the planking; it proved later
on examination that two of the ribs had been broken at the top.
On Thursday morning, 6th June, the expected Officer
arrived, and proved to be a very young man just down from
Oxford and waiting to get into the Air Force who had taken
this boat to Dunkirk and had then been back to Sheerness
for some reason.
The compass had been smashed by a bomb splinter on the
other side, but the damage to the hull had apparently been
done in harbour while he was away. As the damage was pretty
well all above water line we got the navy carpenters to patch
it with canvast and battens, obtained a chart, filled up with
petrol and got under way about 14.30. My arew, on being
given the choice of going back to Sheerness by rail or helping
us two to navigate the crock back to Sheerness at once elected
to come by sea, three of them never having been to sea before.
The boat was a beauty, a 45 foot twin screw Therneycroft, and