BRITAIN'S GREATEST ESCAPE DUNKIRK
EPIC SCALE “Dunkirk is not a war film,” says director Christopher Nolan. “It’s a survival story”
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Charles Lightoller was used to danger at sea. He was the most senior crew member to survive the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and, during World War I, he had been in command of HMS Garry when it rammed and sunk a German U-boat off the Yorkshire coast. So, when he was informed by the Admiralty that his steam yacht, Sundowner, was needed to help evacuate the beleaguered British army from the beaches of Dunkirk and told to hand it over to a naval crew at Ramsgate, Lightoller had other ideas. Sundowner would take part in the rescue - but he would be at the helm. On 1 June, with a crew of his eldest son, Roger, and an 18-year-old sea-scout called Gerald Ashcroft, the 66-year old Lightoller sailed across the Channel, just one of the armada of small boats that would go down in history as the ‘Little Ships’.