British prime minister Winston Churchill called the 1940 evacuation of British and Allied troops from the French port at Dunkirk “a colossal military disaster.” He also called it “a miracle of deliverance.”

Somehow, defeat had turned to victory, of sorts.

Between May 27 and June 4, a ragtag fleet of 850 barges, ferries, fishing boats, lifeboats and pleasure craft, all summoned by the small-craft section of the British Ministry of Shipping, set sail from Ramsgate and made its way 40 kilometres across the English Channel...