Vessels large and small, many of them the same ones that rescued hundreds of thousands of Allied troops from the Nazi onslaught, made their way across the English Channel to mark the 50th anniversary of the evacuation.
Thursday's 10-hour crossing by the so-called "Little Ships" began a weekend of celebrations reuniting about 5,000 French and British veterans - some in their 90s - who fled to England just ahead of the advancing German army in 1940.The dozens of vessels in the flotilla hoisted the British naval ensign and entered Dunkirk waters in formation Thursday afternoon behind the frigate HMS Alacrity to be greeted by a throng of local officials and well-wishers.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I suppose," Hon. British Consul to Dunkirk Sandy Baker said. "They won't be able to do this again 50 years from now."
Britain's Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, stood on the Dover docks to give a royal send-off to 76 vessels re-enacting the World War II mission that rescued 338,000 troops off beaches in northern France and Belgium before onrushing German troops.
At the end of May 1940, tank-led German forces drove Allied troops onto the beaches of Dunkirk and De Panne, Belgium, 20 miles away, where they were trapped with their backs to the channel.
On May 29 of that year, the British government appealed to owners of all types of vessels to volunteer to help make up for the shortage of troop transports, and amateur and professional sailors raced across the channel in their boats to aid the Allies.
Over the next seven days an armada of about 860 naval ships, fishing boats and pleasure craft rescued almost 400,000 British, French and Belgian troops under enemy fire.
British coast guard boats on Thursday stood by to shepherd the elderly fleet, which could travel only as fast as the slowest boat, about 7 mph. In addition to winds and high seas, the boats had to sail through the wakes of the ferries that frequently crisscross the channel.
About eight miles out, a boat that once carried Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in the Hollywood film "The African Queen" began taking on water off Ramsgate.
A rescue helicopter from a nearby Royal Air Force base and a lifeboat were sent to escort and tow the 30-foot steam-driven vessel back to harbor.
A Dover coast guard spokesman said four people were on board, including the American owner of the boat, Jim Hendricks. Hendricks, 55, a hotel owner from Key Largo, Fla., said the system that pumps water into the boiler quit working.
"It was much rougher than I expected, the waves were getting pretty high," Hendricks said, adding, "It was just too much for her."
The three-man crew of the boat, which Hendricks purchased in 1982, said they were afraid the boat was going to overturn in the rough channel.
The flotilla, which will spend three days in the marine basin at Dunkirk, included motor launches, cabin cruisers, Thames barges, yachts, old lifeboats and a former torpedo boat. Many are the original preserved craft that returned from the beaches in 1940 with thousands of expeditionary forces aboard.