Fishing boats and pleasure yachts helped rescue 338,000 trapped soldiers

By late May 1940 the British Expeditionary Force was pinned against the French coast with German forces closing in. The Royal Navy called up hundreds of small civilian vessels — trawlers, ferries, private motor yachts — to ferry troops from the beaches to larger ships offshore. Planners hoped to save 30,000-45,000 men; Operation Dynamo saved over 338,000.

— Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man — 2006
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