Association of Dunkirk Little Ships

The 2012 Commemorative Cruise will be held in London, in King George V Dock to coincide with the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The Pageant to be held at high water on the afternoon of Sunday 3 June 2012 and the event will see up to a thousand boats muster on the River Thames in preparation for Her Majesty The Queen to lead the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The Pageant celebrates Her Majesty's sixty years of service by magnificently bringing the Thames to life.
Little Ships will assemble in Barnes reach prior to the event.

The annual Commemorative Cruise will see many of the Little Ships of the ADLS fleet return to the hospitality of Ramsgate Royal Harbour. It is anticipated that Little Ships will arrive independently on Thursday 26 through Saturday 28th. A quay side service will be held on Sunday 29th at 1100 at the Sailor's Chapel adjacent to the Royal Harbour. All are welcome. Weather permitting the Little Ships will form up outside the Harbour, after the Service of Remembrance, for a wreath laying ceremony. On Sunday evening, members and guests will attend an evening dinner at the Pegwell Bay Hotel.

The harbour master at Ramsgate saw the horrors and the heroism of Dunkirk reflected in the ships that came home - in their crew and their passengers.

He never forgot the way the Sylvia returned, loaded with soldiers, many of them wounded. She had been machine-gunned, set on fire and on the port side above the waterline was a hole which the soldiers had plugged with their tunics to keep the water out. Even so, they had to take turns on the pump all the way back.