TNA / MT 40 66

TNA MT 40 66

Collection details

TNA MT 40 66

Ministry of Transport records containing a Dynamo vessel list and reports from masters and crews engaged in the evacuation, covering 1940–1947.

Holding archive: TNA
Collection reference: MT 40 66

View the archive catalogue entry ↗

Source: The National Archives, Kew, MT 40/66. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Showing only document page 372. Show all matching pages ×

1 matching pages. OCR may contain transcription errors.

List page 1 of 1 Showing document pages 372–372 of this collection

A note about image and OCR quality

Every reasonable effort has been made to present these document images as flat, straight and accurately cropped as possible. Historical records can be difficult to photograph or scan because of tight bindings, deep gutters, page curvature, folds, creases, fragile paper, uneven edges, shadows, glare, skewed pages, fading, stains, tears, attachments and restrictions on how a document may be handled. These conditions can distort parts of an image and consequently affect the OCR transcription.

Considerable post-production work has been undertaken to crop, align, flatten and enhance the images where practicable, but the results represent our best effort rather than exact facsimiles. Text showing through from the reverse of a page, printed backgrounds, stamps, ruled lines, marks and text visible from neighbouring pages may confuse or spoil OCR output. Handwriting is not reliably recognised and, in most places, may be missing, incomplete or incorrectly transcribed. Always check the page image and, where accuracy matters, consult the original record held by the identified archive.

OCR is not a transcription. It is machine-generated text used to create research tags and help locate names and references within the source images; it should not be read as a verified narrative.

Page	Image	OCR text	OCR tags
372	Log in to enlarge	15a STATEMENT BY CAPTAIN J.MACDONALD, MASTER OF MOTOR VESSEL SEQUACITY" 247 (ef. pase 95 ) We had been lying in the Downs for several days and had instructions to proceed to Dunkirk at four a.m. ship on Monday the 27th May 1940 in company with the S.S. "Yewdale". All went well until we arrived off Calais, then I noticed some shells falling in the water ahead of us. I then thought it was land batteries ashore firing at some mines, but soon after the shells started dropping all round my ship, and one came through the port side, at the water line in the main hold and went out the starboard side. I sent my mate down in to the hold with some of the crew to try and patch the hold up. The next shot came through the port side of the engine room and smashed up the auxiliary engines that drove our dynamo etc., put our switchboard out of action and went out the starboard side. This put our pumps entirely out of action for pumping water out of the hold. Another shot came through the wheelhouse and went through the hatches, down the forehold and right through the ship's bottom. We then shaped our course away from the shore and the "Yewdale" which was outside of us did likewise. In the meantime eleven German planes appeared overhead and bombed both the "Yewdale" and ourselves. Another shell burst over our fiddley and put the Bren gun out of action, and wounded the chief engineer.	Sequacity Yewdale MacDonald May right

Raw OCR

Unformatted machine-generated OCR for document page 372.

15a
STATEMENT BY CAPTAIN J.MACDONALD, MASTER OF MOTOR VESSEL
SEQUACITY"
247
(ef. pase 95 )
We had been lying in the Downs for several days
and had instructions to proceed to Dunkirk at four a.m.
ship
on Monday the 27th May 1940 in company with the S.S.
"Yewdale".
All went well until we arrived off Calais, then
I noticed some shells falling in the water ahead of us.
I then thought it was land batteries ashore firing at some
mines, but soon after the shells started dropping all
round my ship, and one came through the port side, at the
water line in the main hold and went out the starboard
side.
I sent my mate down in to the hold with some
of the crew to try and patch the hold up. The next
shot came through the port side of the engine room and
smashed up the auxiliary engines that drove our dynamo etc.,
put our switchboard out of action and went out the starboard
side.
This put our pumps entirely out of action for
pumping water out of the hold.
Another shot came through the wheelhouse and
went through the hatches, down the forehold and right
through the ship's bottom.
We then shaped our course away from the shore
and the "Yewdale" which was outside of us did likewise.
In the meantime eleven German planes appeared
overhead and bombed both the "Yewdale" and ourselves.
Another shell burst over our fiddley and put the Bren gun
out of action, and wounded the chief engineer.