Video: Dunkirk evacuation boats reunited for Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant Some 40 Dunkirk 'little ships', vessels that evacuated Allied troops from French beaches in 1940, will undertake another historic mission of sorts, as they take to the Thames for Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The ships, many of them private fishing and pleasure boats, earned their place in the country's wartime heritage after they were drafted in by the Royal Navy to help rescue hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the shores of northern France. The evacuation was called after the German army stormed through The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France trapping nearly half a million British and French troops. Between May 27 and June 4 1940, 338,000 were scooped up as part Operation Dynamo. The little ships gather every five years to go back to Dunkirk to commemorate the operation, which Mr Summers will stand the group in good stead during the pageant. "There will be a certain amount of chaos," said Mr Summers. If anything goes wrong, it will go wrong and multiply. But at least with the Dunkirk little ships you don't have to worry because we've been in formation many, many times.