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Narrowboat rescues soldiers at Dunkirk


King Learie

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I was with George last night a he was on about that story again and the man who used to own Monarch

 

and the bullet holes that England has down just below her gunnels them what we call rivets !!!!!

And the adrdress George told the guy to Correspond with him to was The Nut House at Cheddleton

I think you will find it was a big wind up otherwise when you google it something would come up and it doesnt and nothing is registed on the small ships register there was a Monarch but not mine

The Dunkirk Monarch was a Thames Barge which lies in a backwater on the Severn below Tewkesbury.

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The Dunkirk Monarch was a Thames Barge which lies in a backwater on the Severn below Tewkesbury.

 

 

Ironically - today for some reason, I was thinking if the canals were ever bombed and found this My link - I thought it might be of interest.

 

 

Alex

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Ironically - today for some reason, I was thinking if the canals were ever bombed and found this My link - I thought it might be of interest.

The PDF document in the link does however reproduce errors, presumably taken from other publications that get it wrong......

 

For example.....

 

The ladies in the photograph are called Evelyn and Anne, and they are using someof their rations to have a nice cup of tea.

 

The second lady is not Anne - It is Frankie Campbell-Martin.

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This story simply isnt true. Its probably all Ike's fault because he did tell a story of this happening. There is no proof of it and the Dunkirk Little Ships do not have a record either. If this had happened and the boats got back or lost it would be canal folklore, none would have passed it by. As far as I know the first and maybe last, proper boatman to go to sea in a narrowboat for an extensive journey was Joe Hollinshead in 1998 when he took "NB Progress" from Caernarfon quay, through the Menai strait and over to Conwy. He was very proud of doing this as apart from the unique experience he maybe - just maybe the fastest narrowboat skipper of all time. The boat was late entering the "Swellies" in the Strait and was moving with the tide at an alarming rate which CC estimated was 18mph! Certainly in my film I was suprised when the boat came into view and zipped over the viewfinder!

Edited by Laurence Hogg
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The PDF document in the link does however reproduce errors, presumably taken from other publications that get it wrong......

 

For example.....

 

 

 

The second lady is not Anne - It is Frankie Campbell-Martin.

 

Would like to open the pdf link, but my computer will not let me. It hangs.

 

Frankie was actually Monica!

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Would like to open the pdf link, but my computer will not let me. It hangs.

 

Frankie was actually Monica!

Finally managed to open it. I should have known what it was as I had a hand in planning it! (I didn't get to proof read it though.) Margaret Cornish is the source of the Frankie error, and she is actually the one on the bank, not Helen Skyrme who is on the Hercules. The ice is really froth, but I do not know the second girl with Kit Gayford on the fore end.

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I thought the Narrow Boats to Dunkirk story emanated from a tale based on an area of Brum known as 'Dunkirk'. In the telling thereof, the tale was thought to have referred to Dunkurque, France - deliberate, or otherwise.

 

Then there's always the possibility of those FMC wide boats that DID get to France, were identified by the lay person as 'Narrow boats'.

 

Bit like Chinese Whispers, with a twist.

 

Here we are, dug out from an old BCN guide: Dunkirk Iron Works, Ryders Green flight by lock 4. Had a dock there.

Edited by Derek R.
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Ironically - today for some reason, I was thinking if the canals were ever bombed

 

sadly yes, there are several photo's around showing damaged boats and at least one showing the damage caused to at least one loading bay, also in one of the boatwomen books there is an account of the boats sustaining heavy damage at City Road after a bomb hit a nearby building.

Edited by hamsterfan
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I have always known the island in the B.C.N. New Main Line near Dudley Port as Dunkirk Stop.

 

Yes thats correct and oppositte the end of the Brades Branch where it joins the new main line (the Island line) is the entrance to the "Dunkirk branch" which went off in a straight line at a acute angle to the main canal, this went to a part of West Bromwich quite close to the Ryders Green locks.

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BanburyLockBombDamage-1.jpg

 

Banbury Lock, I'm assuming this is bomb damage during the war

 

Edit: just checked on google, banbury lock was bombed by gerry

 

God looks like your paint dock on a Monday morning

 

By the way is that 'bombed by gerry' hat trick.............think about it

or Gerry and his pacemakers obviously not peacemakers.

Must put the lid back on this tin of thinners :wacko:

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  • 5 years later...

I cam across this topic via an online search for the details of the Thames Sailing Barge [aka TSB]  "Pride of SHEPPEY", that finished her days as a floating clubhouse for the West Sussex County Council's Youth Sailing project of the 1960's  -the "Barge Sailing Club", mud berthed alongside the seawall at Cobnor on the west bank of the Bosham-Itchenor Channel. [I was the Deputy Club Youth-Leader] When the WSCC bought her she'd been cut-down [her sailing rig taken out of her, to a motor barge; had then proved uneconomic because of her small 33Tons displacement, and had been hulked. The WSCC Youth Officer Ted Amos found her, the funds were granted by the Council, and the hulk was bought and towed round to her permanent berth, with  2 pumps running all the time to stop her sinking en route. Following those threads  Dunkirk and Pride of SHEPPY - and David's comments - I have several Observations. 1] The definitive List of the 1,300 little ships of Dunkirk by Russell Plummer  - "The Ships that Saved and Army" lists all 16 of the of the TSB's commandeered by the RUN. neither "Pride of SHEPPEY nor -  SHEPPY" is listed.  2] Adm File 208/3 [The Red List for 15-9-1940  -Red Lists were regularly published during the 1939-45 War] - ["Minor War Vessels in Home Waters as of 4pm, 15th Sept, 1940"]  will be the first Listing of all the small craft commandeered by the Navy on 27th/28th May for possible use at  Dunkirk in the Inshore Flotilla, and RETAINED for War Service after the end of Dynamo on June 4th. I KNOW there is a sub-listing for the Thames Patrol at Holehaven, - as one of my father's small fleet of pre-war beach excursion boats was based at Holehaven as a river minesweeper - I looked her up in that List -  - so I KNOW there is a Listing for that small Naval Detachment].  3] Monarch? There is only one "Monarch" Listed in Plummer's exhaustive Books - and here are her details QUOTE -  "Monarch" - beach-trip-boat converted to motor  yacht by Haywood's Boatyard at Southend-on-Sea, 1936;41'6" x13'6"  At time of requisitioning owners were T & G Baker. UNQUOTE. However, there was a tourist-tripper motor launch based at Littlehampton pre-War -also Registered with the Board of Trade for passenger carrying tourist excursions between Littlehampton and Arundel, - and other research suggests there may have been a "name" confusion between the 41'6"  open motorboat mentioned which originally did river trips at Maldon in Essex; - and the 60'  tripper open motor boat which did the same thing in Sussex. the Jury is still out on that one. And 4]  The rumoured narrowboat putatively named  something like Belvedeer? -  i HAVE A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.  On May 14th 1940, an Admiralty message was broadcast by the BBC requesting all owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between 30' - 100' l.o.a. craft to send particulars the the Admiralty within 14 days, if they have not already registered [from the date of the BBc Broadcast on the 9-o-clock BBC news bulletin of May 14th, 1940. The original intention was to use the vessels for harbour Service duties, river patrols, estuary and Reiverine minesweepers, and to supplement land bound traffic as river ferries, because of the fuel  rationing [coal, - and oil products] already in place. On May 14th, no-one had any idea that the BEF's retreat from the Dyle fortifiactions might begin as Allied Forces came under attack by the Wehrmacht under the War Plan "Fall gelb"!  With me so far? Only 12 days later, the BEF having been forced into a "fighting retreat which turned into a Rout, - on 26th May 1940 in the early evening, the Admiralty issued the famous signal to begin the evacuation under the name of "Operation Dynamo". All the registered boats from the May 14th Appeal - which will have included narrowboats both for cargo use and for passengers by river and by canal [to supplement the trains and buses and motorcoaches - all by them under the control of the Ministry For War transport ], all those boats then came under the emergency order of the 3 Nabal Officers at Sheerness Dockyard, managing the "Small vessels Pool" [aka the SVP] - and getting SUITABLE CRAFT sent off under tow to Ramsgate, where they would be manned by Naval Ratings and convoy-towed to the Dunkirk harbour and beaches.   Now the useful explanation - it is on record both in the surviving records of the SVP and Naval Signals, - that a number of boats from the Upper Thames sent down to Sheerness were found to be unsuitable for open water work off the beaches either by reason of vessel type or because their power plants  with open circuit cooling, were unable to use sea-water for cooling with engine or Boiler damage. A number of the Thames Excursion steamers already in daily use as River Buses were sent back to their Owners on May 29th for that reason.  So - a narrowboat -[ or boats] almost certainly requisitioned by the SVP Officers finding boats on the Upper thames,  - could have been sent down to Sheerness - where the SVP inspection found her "unfit for the Duty intended" - and sent her back to her Owners upriver.

I hope  these few facts gleaned while researching my paper "To Rescue Our Soldiers" [at the moment available to read online, about the work of some of the "inshore Floltilla" off the Dunkirk beaches] - will clear up some of the misinformation I have read elsewhere on the threads I mention.

Edited by L.J. WILSON
missed a last note -see 4] possible explanation for the narrowboat confusion
  • Greenie 2
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"The ADLS DIANTHUS never reached the Dunkirk beaches during Operation Dynamo". Another item I have noticed on this thread - upon which I can comment knowledgeably because of the research done from family and national Archives for my Dunkirk paper "To Rescue Our Soldiers" - is the mention of the ADLS M/L "Dianthus" - with a "For Sale" Listing elsewhere on this thread.  Because the numbers of surviving "little ships of Dunkirk" were growing ever fewer,  the Association was founded, - to encourage their Preservation. There are a number of sources of contemporary information on which the Authors of the 9 best books about the marine side of the Evacuation have drawn for info. One of them is Douglas Tough's List of the Thames M/L's he roused from their wartime "lay-ups" at Teddington, and sent off to the Small Vessels Pool collection point at Sheerness Dockyard under tow of several SUN Towage Tuga,  the first one being SUB IX, skippered by the Founder of the Company [still in his pyjamas] - on the first day, May 27th, 1940, and on several days following.   At Sheerness Dockyard, boats arriving were inspected by the RN's Fleet Engineer, Capt. T.E. Docksey and a small engineering team. Once the engines had been checked over, repaired if needed,  and were running [remember, many of these craft had been laid-up afloat or ashore since 3rd Sept, 1939], and the water & fuel tanks had been filled, and charts provided from HMS Wildfire's Stores, 16 miles up the Medway river at Chatham; -  craft were made-up into small tows of maybe 6-8 boats, and handed over to the Skipper of an exiled Dutch Schyut or "Skoot" or a Docklands Tug, to tow round to Ramsgate, where "naval crews will be provided!" Now, the ADLS seems to have taken the view that any vessel commandeered by  the SVP Officers was to be classed as a "Dunkirk Little Ship". In fact, a number of requisitioned craft never made it across the Channel; as I said in my other post, some were sent back from Sheerness as "unsuitable for the Duty required". Because of inept crewing by "Drafty" - the HMS Pembroke Personnel Drafting Office at Chatham Naval Base which was "scraping the bottom of the personnel barrel", in the emergency, temporary Navy crews of barely-trained "Hostilities Only" Ratings were being assigned at an hour's notice to these small craft, -crews who had neither technical knowledge to run the numerous different types of engines the civilian M/L's  had installed; and given into the charge of any Rating  Drafty could find - the majority of whom had zero knowledge about working small craft on a lee shore on a falling tide. Remember, the RN hadn't conducted a major amphibious Operation since Gallipoli in 1915.   In the 1939 Navy, "small craft training" was a Specialty, and most Naval vessels only had enough Small Craft Ops.-trained Ratings and P.O.'s for their own ships boats. At the time of the Dynamo Emergency, the Chatham Drafting Office had almost no Ratings available for these extra crews - each commandeered civilian M/L needing a skipper, a motorman, and a 3rd Hand. Vice Admiral Ramsey had initially called-for a mere 50 small motor launches - that meant the Drafting Office had to find 50 skippers, 50 motormen, and 50 Third Hands within 24 hours. So -  back to DIANTHUS. She arrived at Ramsgate under tow on May 30th, and between that day and June 3rd, her RN crew made three attempts to get her across to Dunkirk, and failed every time; they couldn't keep her engines running, and they had some crew injuries. So the M/L DIANTHUS is a "Little Ship" requisitioned for Operation Dynamo that never got to the beaches; and because her untrained Navy crew reported "engine troubles" on every attempt [see Ministry Of Shipping File T.M. 9213/40 - "Reports of Masters and Crews of their experiences during Operation Dynamo" - in the National Archives at Kew] - DIANTHUS A] never went across the Channel, and B] because her engines were said to be 'unreliable' [they were in fact the very reliable Morris Navigator Petrol-Paraffin units which her temporary RN crew knew nothing about] -   the M/L was not retained by the RN for further War Service, and by Jun 9th, she was on her way back upriver to be laid-up again at Tough's Boatyard at Teddington.   DIANTHUS is clearly identified from astern in a Tow of 8-10 such little ships photographed just after the Tiug and Tow had passed under one of London's bridges, heading back up-river towards Teddington Lock..

  • Greenie 2
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A debt of gratitude is owed by many for the bravery of the many. My Father was evacuated from Dunkirk, though he stated he boarded the Royal Eagle at the quayside. This must have been before the harbour entrance had been blocked with sunken craft. Coincidentally as you mention Gallipoli, my Grandfather disembarked from the 'River Clyde'. Incredibly he survived WWI, as my Father did WWII. The painting by Charles Dixon of troops disembarking the River Clyde was made available as a print by a newspaper post WWI, and my Grandfather purchased a copy, had it framed, and it has hung on the family wall ever since. He apparently claimed he could point himself out amongst the men, though that has been taken with the proverbial pinch of salt!

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1 hour ago, Derek R. said:

 Coincidentally as you mention Gallipoli, my Grandfather disembarked from the 'River Clyde'. Incredibly he survived WWI,

I've just been reading about the Gallipoli landings - he was damn lucky to survive disembarking the River Clyde! Many of the first off didn't make it ashore

Brave men

Richard

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No narrowboats it seems, but one inland working barge that did go to to Dunkirk was the Humber Keel Gainsborough Trader. It was the only keel to go I think - the RN were not taking vessels from as far afield as Yorkshire, but G.T. had been sold to a firm on the Thames some years previously. The current owners took her back over for the 75th anniversary in 2015 - the papers ran this picture of her leaving Dover.

RTX1DXG9.jpg

Several Thames sailing barges made the trip but few returned. One that did was Tollesbury which is owned by some friends of ours, I told its story in the last thread.

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My old man joined up in '38 (Royal West Kents) and the following year his battalion became part of the BEF, sent to Belgium soon after the outbreak of war. He told me they spent much time digging trenches there in anticipation of a Great War style campaign, an assumption that was completely unfounded. He was very reluctant to speak of his experiences, but did also tell me that the battalion was stationed by a large canal, across from which the Germans were based.

He and his brother ended up on the beach at Dunkirk, where a passing Ju 87 caused mayhem, killing several of the battalion and injuring, amongst others, his brother. In staying with him and refusing to get in to the water to board a vessel, he and his brother were captured and spent the next four and a half years as POWs. He tried to escape on several occasions, but was always recaptured. He was very bitter about the whole sorry affair. In an attempt to recognise what he'd been through and unbeknown to him, I managed to obtain a Dunkirk medal when they were being offered (sometime in the '70s I think), but he turned it down, saying that he wasn't brave, but foolish for joining up. I think something like 55,000 were taken prisoner at Dunkirk, a subject which, it seems to me, never gets much mention.

My father was 18 when he joined up, and about 24 when released from internment. He suffered severe psychological problems for the rest of his life because of that experience, a fact that, even now, can still make me very angry. 

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