00:00Welcome to Dunkirk. Yes, this was described as our darkest hour and of course it was British
00:07Expeditionary Forces that had to get lifted off the beaches and the real problem was that the big
00:13naval ships couldn't get in close enough so these little small boats that you see, 933 of them were
00:20called up and they managed to evacuate most of the troops out of there over that week period
00:27and unfortunately out of those 933 small boats unfortunately only 697 of them returned most of
00:37the majority of those that were wrecked at that stage were under enemy fire and every big anniversary
00:45these small ships return to Dunkirk to educate, to remember and then to sail back to Britain and
00:53there has been so much interest here in Dunkirk in these small ships there's only about 60 of the
00:58fleet left and last night I spoke to Kevin Finn the Commodore of the fleet. How important is it that we
01:06remember Dunkirk? Incredibly important 85 years ago there were a quarter of a million troops on the
01:11beach up there another 25,000 in in in the rear guard none of them knowing whether we're going to
01:17live or die or whether we're going to be rescued or even if they could be rescued and based upon
01:23what's happening today we need to remember what happened then and commemorate that and celebrate
01:28the fact that that that we still are aware of it and these boats exist as well so it's it's just so
01:33important to us. Lots of these little boats back in the day were only brand new and they just took
01:40them away and used them and the men that were on them didn't necessarily own them and there was
01:46quite a few of them destroyed. There were 240 of them destroyed over that whole period either
01:53sunk at sea or shot to pieces on the beach but I mean today there are 110 members of the association
02:02about 90 that float as they speak and we know that 63 to 64 made it here seven failed on the way
02:10through before that so we're at we're at 70 I mean they're they're all 97 to 105 years of age
02:17and so just getting them here is an achievement.
02:20Well it was Britain's darkest hour and these civilian vessels really really played their part
02:30and of course we mustn't forget of the 51st Highlanders they were the rear guard over 10,000 of
02:37them were captured or executed at the time and these little ships played a role over the next few weeks
02:43of going up and down very close to the coast trying to pick up those Highlanders that had managed to
02:49escape to the coastline so not only were they used in Dunkirk they were used for close-in shore work
02:55over that period of the next few weeks and months that came afterwards but what an experience it is
03:02for me because my own grandfather was here in Dunkirk 16 years of age and then he went and joined
03:09the Royal Navy and it is it is quite emotional to be on these little boats of which he probably was on.
03:15Yeah it's quite something quite something do you know we're going to be back to you throughout the course of
03:20the day but for now thanks very much indeed.
03:22Yeah it looks like a nice day there as well for it.
03:24Yeah but I must say we we talk about the little ships and everything and um and we marvel at how
03:30wonderful it was you don't think so much and it's worth being reminded of the incredible danger some
03:36of those ordinary fishermen uh were in um I mean the MOD or the the service personnel took over the ships
03:42in most cases but not in all cases some of them just went out there and drove their little boats out
03:48there or whatever you don't drive a boat what do you do yeah you do oh you do all right they drove
03:52their little boats out there and they came under fire and it must have been terrifying well and as
03:56Dougie said his granddad was 16 yeah 16 I mean it's kids isn't it a lot of them it's absolutely
04:03terrifying but it's quite right it's all being marked and remembered today wonderful
04:07there you go look that's real footage there we're seeing like if you're listening on the radio which by
04:14the way I do a lot now now I've got it now you've got it in your car now I can actually hear gbd news
04:18radio it's brilliant it's good to see oh it really is but it does remind you that we occasionally we
04:24ought to describe what we're seeing there we're seeing that lovely old black and white footage of
04:28very scary stuff happening there when the little ships went over no we can't sanitize it
04:33no I mean history time sanitizes things so we've got to be careful not to haven't we
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