Disaster or deliverence, triumph or humiliation, the actual achievement of the Dunkirk evacuation has no parallel in the annals of war. More than 330,000 British and French troops plucked fram under fire from the shattered harbour of Dunkirkand its beaches by naval vessels and an armada of little ships-that is history. Now the story of ali the little ships themselves has been written. Russel! Plummer's research furnishes a unique record ofthe individuai ships and their contribution to the evacuation. Their exact number will never be known, but between 800 and 1,300 vessels are estimated to have been involved, and he lists ali those it has been possible to identify. They include passenger ferries, cargo vessels, paddle steamers and excursion ships, Dutch skoots, tugs, fishing boats, barges and lighters, RNLI lifeboats, beach cratt, motor cruisers and yachts: the whole glorious and somehow typically British response to the dire predicament of the British Expeditionary Force trapped across the Channel. The listings contain particulars cf ownership, size and propulsion, command during operation- ali such details as are known- and summaries outline the careers of the comparatively larger vessels in peace and war. A wealth of illustrations includes a number of rare and previously unpublished photographs. As Russell Plummer comments, everyone who went to Dunkirk returned with a story to tell, and those that are recounted here tell of what it was really like, the unforgettable experience of taking part in 'the miracle of Dunkirk' which the crews of the IiUle ships helped to perlorm. Well aver a hundred of the ships, mostly fram the ranks of the smaller ones, but al so a handful of the larger vessels, are stili afloat - proud survivors, some of which join the commemorative trips to Dunkirk that are made every five years. 'Wars are not won by evacuations,' Winston Churchill warned the British people. But without the little ships of Dunkirk it is difficult to imagine how the Second World War would not have been lost.