User:Jradmore/Silver Queen

Silver Queen was built in Southampton in 1926. Throughout the 1920′s and 30′s she worked as a tripper boat off Barry Island in Wales. At the outbreak of WW2 she was requisitioned by the government to take part in Operation Dynamo.

In 1940 the retreating British army was surrounded by the German army on the beaches near Dunkirk in France. Low on supplies and morale they looked certain to be obliterated. The implication of this would be a likely German invasion of Great Britain.

The situation was desperate with 350,000 men pinned down on the beaches. In 1940 the BBC made the following announcement:“The Admiralty has made an Order requesting all owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between 30′and 100′in length to send all particulars to the Admiralty within 14 days from today if they have not already been offered or requisitioned”. Silver Queen joined the armada of Little Ships assembling in Ramsgate and prepared to sail for Dunkirk.

Due to her shallow draft she was ideal for ferrying solders off beaches to the destroyers waiting in the English Channel where they were taken back to England. Under fire,many of these heroic Little Ships were smashed to pieces or swamped by men desperate to escape the beaches and the rapidly advancing Germans.

One account describes how, with no compass or charts, Silver Queen was making her way home packed with soldiers but lost her way. After several hours they spotted what they thought was their safe home port of Ramsgate and headed straight for it. However,this was not Ramsgate but German occupied Calais. Six batteries of German guns pounded away at Silver Queen as she frantically reversed course. One round crashed into her stern, another landed on the starboard bow causing substantial damage. The Belgian launch, Yser, travelling in company, was hit too. Yser fired a flare in a call for help and a friendly destroyer saw the signal, hurried over, and provided covering fire whilst the two strays crept out of range. Silver Queen limped back to Ramsgate and discharged her troops of troops and sank at her pier.

However all was not lost for Silver Queen,she was refloated and worked in Ramsgate working under the Royal Navy as a Contraband control vessel chasing smugglers. Repairs to the bullet holes can still be seen today.

Between 28th May and 4th June 1940 no less than 338,000 British and allied troops were evacuated. Of these one third were saved from the beaches by these Little Ships. Although the retreat was a disaster for the Allies,the Little Ships like Silver Queen were immortalised in what is now known as the “Miracle Of Dunkirk”.

During the war she was taken to Freetown in Sierra Leone working as a harbor patrol vessel. She was sold in May 1944 and taken back to England on board one of the Navy ships.

Peacetime gave her a new lease of life up the coast in Sheerness as a tripper boat. In an era before regulation she reportedly carried 120 passengers on one trip around the WW2 wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery. In the mid 1950s she was bought by Mr. Ferguson from the Channel Islands who sailed her once again across the English Channel to St Peter Port where she was renamed Fermain V and operated as a Ferry until 1996 sailing from St Peter Port to the sandy beach of Fermain Bay.

Aged 73 she was lying ashore on the island and deteriorating badly. Realising the historical importance of the Little Ship, Mr Ferguson’s son generously paid for her to be made seaworthy for yet another channel crossing and donated her to the Dunkirk Little Ship Restoration Trust. In 1996 she sailed under her own steam to Tilbury docks in London where she was used to train Sea Cadets. Having been restored by Dennis Cox of the Trust she took part in various events including four Channel crossings and a 500 mile journey to the International Festival of the Sea in Portsmouth. In 2008 Fermain V carried H.R.H. Prince Michael of Kent on board for a ‘sail by’ salute at Brocus Park,Windsor. Also on board to receive the 21 gun salute was Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. In 2010 Dan Snow used her to film a BBC documentary on the evacuation with veterans from Dunkirk.

In 2010 Fermain V was bought by Joe Radmore who's Grandfather, Barry Wareham, was evacuated from Dunkirk and awarded the Military Medal.

Following a careful restoration at Michael Dennets boat yard, Chertsey on the Thames, she was given back her original name – Silver Queen. For two years she was operated out of Windsor before arriving in the Royal Victoria Dock, east London in September 2012.

Silver Queen was invited to join the Diamond Jubilee flotilla and featured in the Sunday Telegraph and Hello magazine

She now operates as a tripper boat departing hourly from the Emirates cable car, east London.