The last night off the beaches

Operation Dynamo finished before dawn on 4 June with 338,226 men lifted off the Dunkirk beaches, nine days after the planners had hoped for perhaps forty-five thousand.

Most of the lifting was done at night, and the Moon was down to a sliver — good for boats trying not to be seen and bad for finding a mole in the dark. The little ships are the famous part; the great majority of men came off destroyers, from a harbour breakwater that was never designed for it.