A working collection of Operation Dynamo source material whose definitive National Archives catalogue reference is still being identified.
Source: The National Archives, Kew, Unclassified 1. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
1 matching pages. OCR may contain transcription errors.
| Page | Image | OCR text | OCR tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| 720 |
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618 |
Unformatted machine-generated OCR for document page 720.
618 I, E.W. Filley am Master of the auxiliary barge "THYRA" 582 6 We were requisitioned on the 29th May at Millwall 11.30 p.m., towed to Tilbury where three days rations were put aboard. Proceeded in tow of Tug "SUN 12" with other barges, to Southend, thence ordered to Remsgate and thenoe to Dover Harbour, arriving 2.30 p.m. on the 30th May and lying at Prince of Wales Pier. May 31st. Volunteers were called for to go to Dunkirk and all the barges crews offered their services. We proceeded outside breakwater with barge "H.A.C." in tow. We were both taken in tow by tug "ST. ABBS" and proceeded to Dunkirk, arriving there at 5.0 a.m. on Saturday June 1st. We were shot off by the tug at Dunkirk Pier Head and told to beach barges. Towed "H.A.C. with me into beach and with their assistance we got eleven French Soldiers off the beach on to our barge. Other groups of Soldiers refused to come as they wanted to di go to France and not to England. ed At that time bombing was very bad and we had no protection of any kind, not even helmets and we went into the beach as close as possible and picked up the crews of the barge "GLENWAY" and the barge "LARK", also eight British Soldiers that were aboard them as they had been left on the beach with 8 in for the Frenchmer to get when the tide went out, and the crews had been told to get out of it. Including "H.A.C." crew, we had 28 men aboard. As the tugs had disappeared, the only thing I could do was to proceed with what I had got and come away to England. I sailed half way across and was picked up by the tug "EMPIRE HENCHMAN" arriving at Dover 11.45 p.m. on June lst.