Customer Reviews

Three Little Ships

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In the early summer of 1940, the British army was forced into retreat by the invading German army, which was swarming over France. In a desperate attempt to return the soldiers to England, so that the British army could regroup, Winston Churchill called upon the owners of any kind of seacraft, over 30 feet long, to travel in a convoy to the sea port of Dunkirk in France, to help pick up the men stranded on the beach and to ferry them to waiting naval ships for their return to England. The naval vessels were too big to get in close enpugh to the shore, so smaller craft with a shallow draw were essential. Boating people from all over the land volunteered their vessels and the most amazing armada since the days of Drake, was formed and was either towed by bigger boats or went under their own steam. This is the simply, but effectively told story of three separate families who took part in this valiant operation. For days on end, these tiny boats plied backwards and forwards, ferrying the soldiers, with themselves being under constant strafing and bombing attacks from the Luftwaffe. It's a story of the great courage shown by ordinary people when driven to the edge by the unspeakable horrors of war.

"Three Little Ships" has to be the best book by Lilian Harry so far. She tells the story of the evaction of Dunkirk from the point of view of the three captains of boat that were call upon to rescue trapped BEF who trapped on the French Beach in the mid 1940's. She also gives the readed an idea about what it must have been like waiting on the beach, hoping to make it off before the Germans came.
To me, this is the best book that Ms. Harry has done to date and I can't wait to read more by her.