TNA ADM 334 83

ONTINUATION SHEET No 2.
starting our trip from our own moorings to Dunkirk as the troops started their retreat towards the coast. At the portion of the beach on which I was working, the troops had only arrived about the time we got there and we did not know as'a fact whether they were there or whether Jerry was there until we had been to find out.
(5) -- I think this point has been covered in the
Notes. I think everybody who took a motor boat to that
Show will agree with me the Navy, in all ranks and ratings, exhibited an astonishing degree of courtesy, tact and efficiency, the supplies of petrol, water and provisions in suitable containers were awaiting us at
Sheerness and Ramsgate, there was ample of everything and no time was wasted in getting it on board, the raw meat and potatoes issued at Sheerness were not very suitable but there were ample dry rations issued at the same time and at Ramsgate there was a properly devised motor boat scheme of rationing with suitable articles that involved very little cooking.
At Sheerness all the fueling, watering and provisioning was done in the Basin where we assembled and all the stuff was brought there. At Ramsgate there were dumps of fuel andwwater at various points round the harbour as well as the two petrol pumps of the harbour's normal equipment. Provisions were drawn from the pier head at
Ramsgate but it only took about five minutes to collect what you wanted. There was no red tape, no formality, the Navy gave you the number of ratings for crew that you asked for, they simply said "How many do you want" and detailed them accordingly. When you wanted provisions you just went in and said how many you had on the boat and were provisioned accordingly without any delay. What the official rating of a"charge hand'is I do not know,
I gathered that he ranks as a sort of Petty Officer, but my own experience, and that of others with whom I
have spoken of the motor boat owner-masters, was that we were invariably treated as if we were officers.
As an example I may say that I was taken off to the
Captain's quarters on Laudania to be fed when I was ordered off duty and made the return trip to England in the combined bridge and chart room.
Cairngorm On reporting back at Sheerness with my crew on
I had to make a report on my movements to the Commander-in-Gharge of the motor boats there and I
had to add a report on the conduct of my crew, a thing which I had not presumed to do, considering they were regular naval ratings. The two boys who crewed on my own boat had been four months in the navy and neither of them had ever been to sea and were stoker ratings anyway, but they got down to it like ducks to water, one of them was a natural steersman, and worked steadily and efficiently throughout, reporting everything that they saw and never making a mess with the ropes, even in the dark.
Yours sincerely,

OF
GROUP
BEAT
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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

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was in spite far too of a bit of rope round her port
There was a much north rope at Dunkirk, made excellent propeller, there of lop which easterly breeze blowing which headway.
Foreland, a this was was on our starboard was on the raised course a bit the circumstances. just where it was not wanted under the to was she was at the bottom over the main flapping Most of loose the battens carried away and the uanvas patching dry damagerabove water line and she would have quantities been as the bad still only making water in very small damage but as as a chip in reasonably smooth water.
wind without shipping too much and that we should then Foreland
We calculated that we could get round the case and water pretty well astern, and this proved have to the was a so fair that we shipped no more water after that though be there the amount of motion for a time.
point angle of of the light on the water semmed about outside at the Dunkirk, but it was a sunny day and a course just
We had a chart, but no compass, owing to the bomb splinter measure no the dividers on board but using a piece of our to
We had fact we picked up every buoy directly on right. course. In distance on the chart between two string she must found that we were doing approximately 15 knots of the chart, comparing this with the Atitude scale on the buoys bottom and we had to have averaged about 12 knots for the trip and
Soon after go a bit easy before we had rounded the Foreland. although busy drifters we had got through the boom one of the let her which, come as usual, we or uld not read, but we eased signal lamp came pounding after us, flicking her usually a bit, nearer and, as was off to up to and he tell the drifter all he wanted to know patch, about this us seemed to drifter a fine view of our flapping starboard, gave the we gave Cairngorm a bit of a sheer to our starboard which just waved a hand and turned back.
reported Commander about 20.00. As soon as we had reported our crew
We tied up in the motor boat basin, landed and
Mess for yet, and finding this was not so, enquired book us into if we the had dined in charge of the motor boats, he to the dinner at once.
chased the 7th I was duly examined by the Medical Friday
We slept June on board Cairngorn that night, and on
Dunkirk leave. as from the date of expiration of my three days'
signed about off, to two or three different individuals Officer and eventually and
For I this extremely pleasant outing, in the best of all company, was paid at the magnificent rate of £23 & month good and found, as Master of a vessel.
uniform, naval discipline, rohort periods are not provided with under
These temporary employees of the navy, signed on
Club and are not bound to wear any uniform, so one any down as England, and a heap of people who had Thames, and south-east caps and Jackets of nearly every Yacht Club in the saw the met board, I wore them the whole time and club cap they and reefer were. As on I always keep my ship clothes, just including come commissions in the R.N.V.R.
several other members of the Club who had got their