The fate of the British army hung by a thread in May 1940, but ships large and small, military and civilian, came to the rescue.
Just months into the Second World War, the bulk of the British army was holed up in Dunkirk in May 1940 with nowhere to run. In one of the great what-ifs of history, Adolf Hitler hesitated, handing the Royal Navy a week in which to mount a famous rescue mission.