French divers say they have located the underwater resting place of the youngest Briton to die at Dunkirk almost 80 years after his “little ship” sunk during the biggest evacuation in military history.
John Edward Atkins was just 15 when he became cook and third mate on the Lady Rosebery, a Thames sailing barge that took part in Operation Dynamo, in which 338,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from Dunkirk and its beaches over nine days in May and June 1940.
Under fierce Germany fire, stricken troops were plucked to safety by the Royal Navy and an armada of civilian vessels – from fishing smacks and cockle boats to lifeboats and sailing barges. In all 126 merchant seamen died during the evacuation….
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