13. Another Titanic survivor rescued British troops at Dunkirk
Charles Lightoller was the most senior member of Titanic‘s crew to survive its loss in April 1912. He remained onboard as the ship went down, was tossed free by some quirk of the ship breaking up, and ended up, with some 130 other survivors, riding out the night on an overturned collapsible boat which had not been deployed in time to be filled. During the First World War Lightoller commanded a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Garry, when it rammed and sank a German U-boat. The German and British accounts of the sinking differ, with the Germans accusing the British of attacking survivors in the water, a topic which Lightoller refused to subsequently address.
In 1940, as the British Army was reeling towards complete destruction at Dunkirk, Lightoller, then retired, refused to allow the Royal Navy to seize his personal motor launch to assist in the evacuation of British troops. Instead, he piloted the boat, which he had named Sundowner, across the Channel himself, assisted by his son and one of his friends. Together they rescued 127 British troops from the shores of France (Lightoller’s elder son was in the British Army at Dunkirk, but had already been evacuated) and carried them safely to England. Likely none of them were aware that they were rescued by a survivor from Titanic, which sunk 28 years earlier.