The Little Ship Of Dunkirk – The Story Of A Rare 1927 Baby Gar Jr.

Thank you Giles and Texx for an interesting story about a living piece of history. She has certainly earned a proper restoration. It would be great to keep her hullsides painted as part of her service record.

If anyone is looking for a SCRIPPS 202 get in touch with me.
bartlomiejwnek(at)hotmail.com

Thanks for this article Texx, Absolutely excellent, as usual.

As for restoration costs , I’m persuaded that the provenance of the Thunderbird (if it’s fully documented) should be worth a tidy amount all on its own, certainly more than the sums advanced above…. after all how many open runabouts actually participated in the Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) evacuation let alone an American built craft that was once owned by an plucky (and well known) female race boat pilot who flew by the handle ‘Joe’ Carstairs .

Now I’m not at all sure what reaction a restored (or unrestored) “Thunderbird” might receive if she materialized at Amelia Island or the annual Clayton show, after all the Dunkirk extraction is a largely uncharted story south of the Canadian border.

On the other hand, if this particular Baby Gar were displayed at the Gravenhurst (Ontario) ACBS event I am convinced that the crowd would be abuzz; not only because she was one of the “little ships” but because Carstairs actually spent much of the summers of both 1929 and 1930 on or near Lake Muskoka.

During that Joe and her crew worked diligently with Herb Ditchburn and Burt Hawker in a mad scramble to iron out the kinks in her three boats (Estelle III (1929), IV and V(1930) before shipping them to Detroit for two successive attempts to wrest the Harmsworth from… you guessed it the indomitable Garfield Wood.

Image Courtesy Getty Images- Hulton Archive Douglas Miller

I have just finished writing a Paper about my Father’s Fleet of beach-excursion boats from Southend on Sea, – 7 of our fleet and 29 in total from the 7-mile-long foreshore that were requisitioned for Operation Dynamo. And I hvae to tell you that
Lt.Col Orde’s List was incomplete and he knew it was incomplete. Richard Collier had another attempt at the back of his 1961 Book – “The Sands of Dunkirk”, then Walter Lord tried again in 1981 in “The Miracle Of Dunkirk”, [he’d identified a few more “little ships”]; – and the most recent attempt at a comprehensive Listing has been Russell Plummer’s 1991 Book “The Little Ships that Saved An Army” in which the Author has managed to identify 1300 “Little Ships”. I have copies of all three, plus a copy of Lt. Col. Orde’s List – and I’m sorry to tell you that there is no listing for an M/L named “Thunderbird” in any of them. However, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”; and all four Authors were careful to write that they did not think their Lists were complete, and that there were probably more “little ships” still to be identified. One fact about the little ships that has always messed-up listings right from Lt.Col. Orde’s first attempt – is that the first Lists were based on vessels’ names listed against numbers of rescued soldiers LANDED AT Dover, Ramsgate, and Margate. Initially, this method of Listing omitted large numbers of small craft which collected soldiers from the beaches and ferried them out to bigger ships in deeper water – half a mile and more from the HW mark. Lt. Col Orde’s first List was then expanded by additional documentation fro Tough’s Boatyard, from the Director Small vessels Pool, from the Naval Control Officer Thames and Medway, in Command of HMS Leigh [Southend Pier, commissioned as a Naval Shore Establishment. Later historians were able to note additional small-craft names from survivors stories, from ships logs, from the memoirs of rescued soldiers and ex-navy personnel, and also from the archives of the Small Craft Section of the Ministry Of Shipping. So, although your “thunderbird” is not yet listed anywhere that I can see as having been present off the beaches rescuing men from the shore and ferrying them out to larger ships [the only work she’d would have been any use for] – do not give up hope of being able to prove that the oral history you have, may yet be confirmed from contemporary documents. Until that is so, however, I regret that you will not be able to claim that “Thunderbird” IS a Dunkirk Little Ship and hence a Member of the World’s most exclusive Yacht Club!

Giles, – if “Thunderbird” DID have any WW2 Service, there would have been documentation for it, as you contend. The first step would have been the completion of a T98 Requisitioning Form by the Naval Officer in Command of the Area in which she was found in 1940. So, – if her owner lived in London or the Home Counties, for example, and Thunderbird had been “laid-up” at a Thames Boatyard [and she would have been laid-up – due to Petrol Rationing], – that Requisitioning paperwork would have been signed by the Naval Control Officer, Nore Division, or one of his Delegated Deputies. A copy of the T98 Form would then have been sent to the Small Craft Division of the Ministry of Shipping, which would have arranged payment of an agreed Charter Fee. If the Navy had decided to retain the “Thunderbird” for further War Service, then the MoS would have sent the owner a T691 Forms package, to agree a “fair & reasonable” valuation of the vessel, and arrange for the payment of Compensation at 1939 Book Rates. If you are to prove either requisitioning just for Dunkirk Evacuation Service, or for additional War Service, you’ll need to research those Official Files [or have a paid researcher do it for you] – which are in the care of the National Archives at Kew. If any of the three Books, I referred-to in my earlier messages, listed “Thunderbird”, you wouldn’t need to do this, their Authors having done the prior research in contemporary documents already. Since there is no mention, – having someone look in those Official Files is your only remaining recourse; no-one else will have the Documentation you’d need to prove your Theory. If you can contact Russell Plummer, – he may be interested enough to look into his own research Notes, and send you the Correct National Archive’s File Numbers that will need to be examined.

The latest attempt to list all the boats which help save the British Expeditionary Forces in 1940, from evacuations at Dunkirk, and other french ports much further South was published in 1999, and for my own research purposes I’ve just obtained a copy. “B.E.F.Ships – before, at, and after Dunkirk” by John de S. Winser. I’m disappointed to have to tell you that Thunderbird isn’t listed in his small craft section either, though he has managed to extend the work of Richard Collier [1961] and Russell Plummer [1990] in identifying a few more small craft not previously listed by them. My own feeling is that – even if “Thunderbird” WAS requisitioned by the Navy around 28th May, 1940, under a Charter Form T98; – with her small seating capacity, she would have been judged “unsuitable” for the Dunkirk evacuation, and more likely been retained for Harbour Duties by the Director, Small Vessels Pool, Sheerness – and she might have been deployed to any fleet anchorage from there. In a Navy Role, it is unlikely she would have kept her name; more likely she would have been painted battleship grey and assigned a Number, like all the rest of the Fleet’s Fast Motor Boats. Since she was a non-standard design, with a non-standard engine for which the Navy would have had no spares, it is unlikely in the extreme that she would have been assigned aboard a larger Warship. Which leaves Harbour Duties.