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,

Stuon
ORING
-3-
was sleep concerned. with my crew, the first since Sunday night so far as I
were cutter. lying in tow to "Jutland" with a whaler by09.30
We turned out on the morning of the 30th May and boats taken Jutland was one of the Dutch diesel navy engine and would over by the Navy and flying the white cargo and for A.A.Defence.
ship. Both these ships carried Lewis guns fore and aft carry about 450 men, H.M.S. "Laudania" was a similar ensign in the mine fields, but we lay on tow to Jutland until 15.30
I do not know what delayed our start, probably alterations outside the Harbour. At about 15.30 we got going and, with off in order to carry officers from one ship to another lying outside Ramsgate Harbour with occasional intervals of easting in about six hours (an average of about 12 knots). This our own engines running at about 6 knots, wentowed to Dunkirk was a very uncomfortable trip as destroyers kept crossing and passing at high speeds making a heavy wash and we had to try and keep my boat sheered off to port while the cutter and whaler were sheered off to starboard. Sometimes we came together in spite of all our efforts but no damage was done and the only injury sustained by anyone was when one of my crew was at the wheel for a few minutes and a destroyer passed very close and made such a wash that my boat was nearly put of petrol cans.
on its beam ends and I bumped my shin badly on my deck cargo beach eastwards for a few miles before "Jutland" dropped
We arrived at Dunkirk about dusk and turned along the
We were opening the batting at this part shad be canny about anchor. We cast off tow at once and I took the whaler and hailing the shore as we did not know whether ferry or our chaps cutter in tow myself and dug out for the beach. It was dark night and visibility was not too bad. At first we slightly misty as well as dark but it was not really a could find no life on the beach but after a short time were there twe were were hailed by Frenchmen and for a little while found sheft boat with them. The procedure was to tow the whaler and
Frenchmen only and made one or two full journeys back to the cutter to the beach and swing them round and cast off tow in about 3'6" (my draught being 2'6"). The whaler thon dropped his grapnel and went in as close as he dared without grounding the cutter and troops waded out to board them.
As soon as the two boats were full they called for the motor bost and pulled up on the whaler's grapnel, I would come past and take the whaler's boxes rope in passing and swing out towards the ship which had to lie about threequarters of a miles out.
While the whaler and cutter were loading I patrolled parallel with the beach, keeping as close as I dared without take ground as it was the only motor boat in that area grounding, it being essential that the motor boat should not and the cutter and whaler had only four mon apiece aboard except at great loss of time.
so that they were not in a position to row out to the ship,
While patrolling my job was to pick up any swimmers or waders and any odd craft which had put out from the shore, there were seve al of these. After the first few loads had been taken to the ship, all Frenchmen, a British officer waded out and was picked up by me and reported that at whole
Division of British were waiting to be taken off a little nearer Dunkirk town than we had been working.

0507
-4-
reported cutter to whaler, and took them all back to the up the
I and took him aboard, went back and picked full further the Captain of Jutland that the ship, to the was my leading mark as the British big fire just in-shore up the beach and that I was going there, British a were and the east of this. From then on we worked to this were point just
British; Jutland was filled roughly half and half British the
French came down the beach and mingled with and French.
After we had been going to this point for about three or four trips, a German bomber most inconsiderately dropped the a. large bomb on our large fire and blew it out like a candle, this did not matter very much then as I had other leading marks and the mass of troops had increased so that they were quite visible on the beach.
have
By about03.00, 31st May, Jutland was full and she sailed paffer at once to avoid the dawn bombing, Jerry was trying to bomb the ships as they left loaded and thus get the ships and the way.
men, but his efforts throughout the 10 - 11 hours that I was working on the beach were very poorly rewarded.
Jerry also had some big guns for which aeroplanes were spotting, and they dropped verey lights over the ships, but here again Jerry wasted ammunition without hitting anything that I saw. One of the crumps came as a nasty shock as the at least two bombs explosion actually stopped my boat for a split second, and I
shook the boat, but thought I had grounded as she quivered all over but in the none stopped it.
next moment she went on again and the noise of the crump followed the air push so that I knew it was nothing serious.
On Jutland leaving about03.00 on the 31st May I turned over handania was with the cutter and whaler to Laudania and by aboutos. she filled about 3/4
this time I had used up all my deck cargo of petrol and the too was full, making a total of about 900 men brought off. By
Birtish +1/4 Trouch engine wanted more oil and the grease cups refilled, also there was a certain amount of rotten rope round the propeller german shaft, this I had not been able to cut in time. My two crew were both stoker ratings of four months' service in the Navy only and being stokers were not issued with clasp knives, on my stern-man shouting to me that an odd rope was getting round our propeller, I had to leave the wheel and cut it with my own sheadknife, if he had had a clasp knife he could have done it in time, I was a moment too late.
The cutter had gone aground under a stranded lighter on the windward side of same, a N.W.wind having got up a bit in the morning, and as I could not get near enough to get the cutter aff and the crew, also their young sailors, did not, how to get off, I resoued the crew and brought them off to Laudania
Engine had been in accordance with the Captain's instructions. My boat only stalling, probably just managed to gedouside Laudania with the last whaler load due to cope, relf.
that she could take and the Captain ordered me off with my starter now refused crew and the crew of the whaler, the crew of the cutter being service.
already on board, and turned over my boat and the whaler to a
Naval drifter which was said to have petrol and mechanics on board so that they could be of use further.
The whole of us who had been on the beach work then had our first stand-bysy since 21.30 the day before and my crew and myself had not had anything to eat since 17.30 the day before and nothing to drink since 15.30, and had been continuously employed, as had the two Naval ratings who remained on each of the naval rowing boats during the tow across.
Jerry started his usual effort when the ship left at
08.30 to09.00 on the 31st, but with no results, and plenty of hot tea and bread and butter and jam and a chance to light a pipe had made me perfectly indifferent to anything Jerry did.

THE
OF
to space
LOVAD
-5-
SEAL
THIS
Birth the it Officers' pistols and the A.A.Lewis guns were unable but to
On two the way back to England we avoided a floating-mine, drifting pop so we informed another ship that was outward bound and it was duly popped in due course.
so
SECURITY
9
in the flbator nor the popping of it, it was first sighted on
The troops on board Laudania evinced no interest whatsoever off and passed behind it, the troops evidently regarded this as our starboard bady and as the tide was running that way we sheered up to see what happened to it.
entirely a naval matter and I do not think any of them even got
He whole course from Rams gate to
Off the Foreland we enquired of the local Policeman, a
Dunkirk waslike gentleman in his shirt-sãeeves on a drifter, as to which port the main strat would take us and were sent to Margate. Three other ships and
1: busy town.
two destroyers also had loads for Margate and we eventually saffee sweral tied up outside two destroyers and landed the whole issue abreast going each across each ethar about 17.30 on 31.24 may way.
I reported to the Naval Office with my crew of two and we were promptly put in a taxi and sent back to our own port at
Ramsgate, a matter of a few minutes which might have been a dreary Journey by train. As throughout, there was no red tape in the Navy at all, they had ready everything that was necessary and our general instructions were that if we were in any sort of trouble we could close any ship we saw as it would be one of ours.
On arrival at Ramsgate I reported to the Commander = the
Naval Office and within five minutes my crew had been taken off to the temporary barracks established by the Harbour and I was on my way to getting a bed for the night inaan Hotel.
On Saturday, 1st June, I reported at Pier Head abouto9.
and asked for another boat and before lunch time had taken over one which had only been brought into Ramsgate that morning and german put her into commission with a new crew. This boat was an old
Admiral's barge from the last war, to which the only conversion of any importance seemed to be that the steam engine had been fitted where the original funnel existed. The engine was a fourtaken out and a petrol engine substituted, a dummy funnel being cylinder engine with cylinders of enormous size, it had no self-starter and worked with a clutch, being in fact a lorry engine. The engine was a brute to start and the gear lever required a strong man to put it into any position, but the engine was started and run over for a few minutes by the man who stated that he had brought the ship round from the Thames pressing. and he assured me that it was good for 12 knots without undue is not got been over my new crew had
As we were all anxious to go over again, but I did not relish in fact.
the idea of being towed any more, the prospect of being able to in about six hours each way was very welcome, and I decided that go over under my own steam at 12 knots and so make the journey on this occasion we would do what most of the larger motor boats had been doing, namely run over under our own steam, pick up a boat-load and come back with them. I was informed that the new boat only drew 3'2" so that it would be quite possible for the troops to get to the boat without swimming. This still did not strike me as being a very efficient method of getting the troops off but I felt that some real work had been done with Constant
Nymph and I had been informed that morning shat 187, 000 were this boat could already off so that I felt justified in indulging in something men should think have taken 35
more in the nature of a pienic, especiably as cigarettes and other little comforts had been provided on the boat by the owner for the rescued troops. We had already victualled the boat and obtained our water supplies and directly after lunch we cast off to go across the Harbour and get petrol, having as a quite unauthorised passenger an old member of my own Club who