“I am ordered to commandeer this vessel, immediately, for use by the navy and to take command of it!”
The words were spoken by a naval sub-lieutenant to Ben Bainbridge, captain of the motor vessel Bee. The crew of the small ship were unloading a consignment of steel plates on to the quay in Portsmouth dockyard. They were looking forward to sailing back to their home harbour, Newport, Isle of Wight, in time for supper. But that was not to be.
Within thirty-six hours, the Bee was in a sea littered with wreckage, oil spills and floating corpses, dodging lethal bullets and bombs as wave after wave of German aircraft flew overhead.
This is the story of a “Little Ship”, inspired by the diary of the ship’s engineer.
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