Gosport Little Ship rescues 67 soldiers from Dunkirk
It’s a long way to Dunkirk from Royal Clarence Yard, via Ramsgate and Calais with the Little Ships, but that is what HMS Motor Lighter X-209 did and was the only one from the Gosport Yard to do so in June 1940.
Gosport Dispensing Optician Barbara Kemp went to a local talk covering this wartime feat and her husband Alan realised his grandfather, Jack Kemp, was the Mate on this Lighter! Barbara decided to create something to commemorate the rescue of 67 British, French and Belgian soldiers to Ramsgate before they returned to Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport.
Barbara is well-known for her crochet skills and designed a plan to make a one metre by half a metre 3D panel depicting X-209 for a national project ‘The Longest Yarn’. It can be seen with over 20 panels at Gosport Museum from 13th May to 4th June as part of the ‘Britain at War’ displays before joining up for a UK tour of 80 panels. She enlisted the invaluable help of other members of Stokes Bay WI with their ‘WI-itty Knitters’.
Together they carried out Barbara’s design to be ‘as accurate in yarn as the original boat allowed’. They even included a ship’s wheel which had been made from a model by Jack Kemp himself – now crocheted in to fit the display.
As Barbara Kemp of Stokes Bay WI said: “When X-209 left Gosport they only knew they were to head for Ramsgate and then received orders to cross the Channel, towing a wooden lifeboat with the Little Ships, for the rescue at Dunkirk. This is all clearly noted in Jack’s diary and has been fully researched so the project I had in mind would be accurate”.
The work created binding friendships as they crocheted, taking over 400 hours in six months. The high standards needed were approved at every stage by The Longest Yarn and Stokes Bay WI is extremely proud to be involved with Barbara’s project which honours the men from Gosport and their part in the Little Ships rescue at Dunkirk.