In the late spring of 1940, European powers were still engaged in what had been dubbed the “ Phoney War.” Despite Germany’s invasion of Poland the previous September, France and Britain had done little more than assemble troops on their side of the defensive lines and glower at Adolf Hitler’s troops. Little did the crew know, but the Medway Queen was about to be sent across the English Channel on one of the most daring rescue missions of World War II: Operation Dynamo, better known as the evacuation of Dunkirk. As it turned out, that was precisely the idea.
The cook’s assistant remarked, “Enough grub has been put aboard us to feed a ruddy army,” writes Walter Lord in The Miracle of Dunkirk. The crew of the Medway Queen was taking on an unusually large load of supplies for their next mission.
