Talk:Little Ships of Dunkirk

Underestimated numbers of 'little ships' requisitioned (moved from article)
I am removing the below quoted material from the article and posting it here, as it is primarily a discussion of sources for this article. --
 * Underestimated numbers of "little ships" requisitioned, stated above - - states Authoritatively that "Of the 850 'Little Ships' that sailed to Dunkirk, 235 were sunk by German aircraft or mines,...." One would assume that this total includes those abandoned en-route because their engines had broken-down, and sunk out-of-hand as "dangers to navigation";, and those stranded on the beaches due to inexperienced Crews; - and one must also assume that the IWM's records are likely to be the most comprehensive available for the total number of small craft involved, as they would not only include the Records of the Navy Port Control Stations, such as the two at Southend Pier Head, and at Royal Naval Base Sheerness [two of the main Small Craft Collection Points]; but also the archived records of the Ministry of Shipping, which had the responsibility of paying the Charter fees and expenses incurred under Ministry of Shipping Form "T.98 - pro Forma Charter Party"; and under the provisions of the "Emergency Powers Act, 1939, Article 53, Defence Regulations" -  the Law which made the requisitioning of all these small craft legal, with or without the Consent of the Owners. The archived Ministry of Shipping Records would also include the Claims for Loss or damage, which would have had to be settled and paid, under the provisions of the Ministry Form T.98   The Loss of the S.M.N.Co.'s Fleet Flagship, the 137Ton, 105ft long, twin-screw, "New Prince of Wales" - [Board of Trade Licensed to carry 600 passengers but only drawing 3ft of water fully loaded, and having just passed her annual pre-Holiday-Season Board of Trade Inspection for the renewal of her Passenger-carrying License]  was due entirely to Naval arrogance and incompetence - in allowing the fuel tanks to be topped-off with diesel instead of the correct fuel, parafin; and in assigning a 2nd-yr ERA-apprentice to run a pair of 75hp Thorneycroft petrol/parafin engines when he hadn't even completed his Course at HMS Sultan, - the Naval School for Engineroom Artificers, which was based in Sheerness Dockyard. It is also worth noting that every Commercial owner who lost his vessel/vessels during Operation Dynamo, lost his means of earning a Livelihood, and if his vessel had needed a crew, the Loss meant the crew ere out of work too, - and if they were too old for Military service that meant they had to go on the Dole until they could find some War Work.

[Originally added by User 87.244.81.86, reposted with formatting corrections for readability ] --IxK85 (talk) 23:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Compensation for damaged/lost vessels and wounded or lost crew?
Can anyone speak to what measures were in place by the British gov't to compensate owners of "Little ships" that were damaged or lost during the effort to rescue the BEF? And was there any compensation for physical wounds or loss of life amongst the civilian (non-RN) crews? I think this must be included in the article and implore a knowledgeable editor to add (or re-add?) this material please!  Azx2  04:43, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Red links and stray info
Is there any need for all the red links in this section? Most of them are unlikely to have their own article. Also, there is more information about some of them at Royal National Lifeboat Institution which should be in this article rather than RNLI, as all but 2 or 3 boats were commandeered by the RN rather than sailed by their regular crews (and that's another story that should be mentioned in this article - I'm working on it). Tony Holkham (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Herbert Sturmey lifeboat
This lifeboat is listed as having been in Operation Dynamo but I can find no reference to her other than her having been at Cadgwith, Cornwall, from 1932. The citation is a dead link. Guide of Dunkirk seems to have gone to Cadgwith after Dunkirk, so was Herbert Sturmey somewhere else handy at the time of Dynamo? Anyone know? Tony Holkham (talk) 23:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion of Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Ships in Category
I would suggest the title of the article is somewhat misleading, in relation to its inclusion of many ships which could hardly be described as "little". By which I mean primarily such as those of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company and the ''Royal Daffodil - which had a gross registered tonnage of 2,060 tons. The popular perception of "The Little Ships of Dunkirk" are of such as pleasure craft; those commonly found of the Thames, Medway and the area of the south coast of England. The ships of the Isle of Man Steam Packet involved in the operation ranged in tonnage from 1,691 (Mona's Isle) to 3,104 (Lady of Mann). I would contend that either the title of the article needs changing in order to remove ambiguity with regard to the size of the vessels involved, or such as cross-channel and other commercial steamers, and their part in the evacuation, should be transferred into the body of the main article concerning Operation Dynamo. Would that not be seen as more reflective? Harvey Milligan (talk) 08:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Bumping this up. Several of the Steam Packets had already been requisitioned in 1939 for enforcing the blockade, fitted with armament, and were commanded by a naval reservist.GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:47, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Numbers?
Something the article needs is an estimate of the total number of evacuees taken off by the "little ships" in comparison with the number taken off by naval vessels. Peter Bell (talk) 04:34, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Dunkirk (2017 film)
A number of actual "little ships" were included in Dunkirk (2017 film); however, there are conflicting numbers: 12 according to Telegraph and 14 according to Daily Mail. The Telegraph article is pay-wall, so I was unable to verify. I suspect that the Telegraph refers to the number actually seen in the final cut, whereas the Daily Mail refers to the number used for filming -- in other words, two ended up "on the cutting room floor". If anybody could clear this up, it would be appreciated. Thanks, —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 16:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)