REMEMBERING Firefly
A single wooden cupboard once covered the area marked by this metal plaque. The cupboard and the man who directed me towards it, helped me to identify Firefly as the vessel which probably saved my life during the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War Two. Let’s now roll back the years.
Zuydcoote Beach near Dunkirk. 30th May 1940. After two days and nights of concentrated enemy air activity, our lucky break came on that unforgettable Thursday morning. Clear skies gave way to low cloud cover and mist. Looking seawards we were cheered by the sight of a host of small craft, waiting in the shallows to ferry the long lines of exhausted troops to larger vessels moored further out.
Our turn came around noon. Four of us, assisting a wounded man, scrambled over the stern of a small motor yacht. Almost too small to be exposed to all that turmoil. Once we were safely aboard, the skipper said, “I expect you chaps are pretty hungry. There is bread and butter in the cabin cupboard. Help yourselves”. We didn’t need a second invitation. On locating the cupboard, I was struck, both then and long afterwards, by the unusual shape and positioning. All of fifty-five years later I learned that the vessel’s name was Firefly and that her brave wartime owner was a Commander Bowen RN Ret’d.
He and his single young assistant lost no time in getting Firefly under way. Soon we had joined hundreds of other allied servicemen aboard the destroyer HMS Anthony on the final leg of our eventful journey back to England, home and safety. Both Anthony and Firefly made several more rescue missions before the evacuation drew to a close.
In Dover, I was put on a train to ‘Somewhere in England’. The ‘somewhere’ turned out to be Portland in Dorset. On the way, I used the Stop Press column of the Evening Standard on which to scribble a hurried note to my parents. That faded fragment, now in my scrap book, reports that the horse called Run Rabbit Run had finished 3rd in the 2:15 at Salisbury. Rather appropriate, don’t you think?
Fast forward to May 1995. The annual veterans pilgrimage and Little Ships Week in Dunkirk. Firefly’s current owners Brian and Val Green, had brought her across the Channel for the event. We met on the quayside and after swapping experiences, I was invited to look over their pride and joy. Once aboard, a strange feeling of déjà-vu overcame me, which intensified when, on entering the cabin I spotted that familiar looking cupboard. During our conversation other co-incidences emerged and quickly became accepted facts. There was no doubting it now. Firefly and I had been reunited after more than half-a-century apart.
Firefly was completely overhauled and refurbished recently and is well on track to achieving her centenary in the year 2023. That legendary cupboard is no more but certainly played a major part in bringing about the firm friendship, which I enjoy with Brian and Val today. When ever possible we meet and chat about old times – sometimes aboard Firefly, of course.
Denis Kinnell
Southport May 2007
Denis Kinnell died in November 2008.
The current owners of Firefly, Mark and Penny , are honoured to remember him.
Preston, near Canterbury, April 2015
