By Karen Cox
As the 85th anniversary of Operation Dynamo celebrations get underway and many of the historic Little Ships arrive in harbour, one encounter is a reminder that the pivotal time in history is also deeply personal for many.
Event co-ordinator Chris Cox was at the Ramsgate Royal Harbour today (May 16) when he bumped into Leslie Burgess who was looking for Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (official) vessel Watchful.
His father had been aboard Watchful during Operation Dynamo in May and June 1940.
A short while later Les was standing onboard the Watchful in the same spot as his dad had been during the war.
Les has a long connection with the sea; his grandfather Arthur Burgess took his own fishing boat up to Narvik in Norway to rescue the troops in World War Two.
His father John Martin Cromwell Burgess, nicknamed Jack, was born in 1915. During the war he was requisitioned from his base, HMS Europa in Lowestoft, and sent to be crew on Watchful from 25th May till 19th October 1940.
Ten times, the Watchful was sent across to pick up the troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, and on the eleventh attempt, whilst Jack was steering the boat, it was attacked by a Junker, more commonly known as a Stuka dive bomber, and took a direct hit.
They managed to limp the Watchful back to Dover where she was beached by the Clock Tower, and then the crew, including Jack, all jumped off and ran to the pub for a well-earned drink.
Shortly afterwards the Military Police came to fetch them from the pub to go back out to sea, but the stop gap repairs done on the Watchful didn’t hold and they had to bring the boat back to Dover once again.
Jack survived the war and died in 1996.
Leslie, from Deal, followed in the family footsteps and became a Steward in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, he was front line providing supplies and logistics for the Navy. He served for 18 years and was involved in operations in the Adriatic, Sierra Leone and the Gulf War.
Leslie had never been onboard his father’s boat before and was overwhelmed to be able to leave copies of his father’s Naval documents with the current owner. He said that it had made his year to be able to stand where his father had once stood and meant the world to him.
Wonderful , pleased for Leslie .