Operation Aerial: Evacuation from Western France

Operation Aerial was the final large-scale British evacuation from France during the collapse of the Allied campaign in June 1940. After Operation Dynamo removed troops from Dunkirk and Operation Cycle cleared Le Havre, British, Polish and Czechoslovak forces—along with civilians—still had to escape from ports farther west. Between 15 and 25 June, naval vessels, troopships, merchant ships and small craft embarked them from Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Brest, Saint-Nazaire, La Pallice and other Atlantic ports. The evacuation was dangerous as well as hurried. On 17 June the troopship Lancastria was sunk off Saint-Nazaire with catastrophic loss of life. Elsewhere, ships continued loading people, stores and vehicles while German forces approached the coast. The ledger reproduced here records the administrative side of that effort at Devonport: motor boats, fishing boats, drifters, a tug and a lifeboat taken into service, assigned Ministry of Shipping files and released when no longer required.