00:00In May 1940, hundreds of little ships answered a call.
00:07They weren't warships.
00:10They were life crafts, fishing boats and private yachts.
00:14It keeps Britain in the war.
00:17It allows them to rescue an army from the jaws of catastrophe
00:21and even though France unfortunately surrenders,
00:25Britain is able to keep its army, defend itself from invasion.
00:29Just imagine what it would have been like for the troops stuck here on the beach.
00:32Rations running low. Hunger ever increasing.
00:37The Nazis getting closer. Time was running out.
00:41When I hear that it makes me realise and understand why my dad was so thankful for his life
00:49and why he was the wonderful person that he was.
00:54So just imagine what they would have felt when on the horizon
00:58they saw hundreds of little ships coming to save them.
01:03When I came on he said I decided that's where I was going to sit and then the stupas won't get me.
01:08And then he said I'd like to go down and see the engines.
01:12So I took him down below, showed him the engines and he said that's what saved my life.
01:17And he was near to tears.
01:2085 years on, some of those original ships have recreated that journey.
01:25They're all now the remaining veterans of the Dunkirk Return, of Operation Dynamo.
01:31Most of them are between 97 and 102 years of age.
01:35So we can still celebrate and commemorate what occurred.
01:38I've travelled to Dunkirk myself to retrace that historic sailing.
01:44Just got across the shipping lanes.
01:46And it's a challenge to try and avoid them, make sure we're not in their wake
01:49and going at different angles to be sure we're crossing it in the correct way.
01:53One of our boats broke down in French waters.
02:02If you've got a couple of decent roads, we'll come and get you Nick.
02:06The Dunkirk spirit came alive again.
02:10And back in Kent I've been finding out just how far that civilian effort went.
02:15And so the people of the town, especially the women, would get all the bread they've got,
02:20or the butter they've got, anything they could put into it to make sandwich fillings.
02:24They came down to the harbour and they were feeding these soldiers, giving them tea.
02:2985 years on, their spirit sails again.
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