During nine days and nights of the evacuation, despite being damaged in an air attack, Sabre made ten round trips to Dunkirk.

Then it was full speed to Dover with a turnaround of only 58 minutes, and the ship was back again at the Dunkirk harbour mole at 11.00am, where they loaded a further 800 men.

This meant because of the falling tide and a defective echo sounder, Lieutenant-Commander Dean had to slowly edge her passage through the shallows.

HMS Sabre had made more round trips than most and brought back to Dover a total of 5,765 soldiers – amongst the highest number for any individual ship.

It began with the evacuation of Cherbourg and continued for the next ten days, moving south to St Nazaire, Bordeaux, and right down to the Franco-Spanish border.

In September 1940 Archdale was with HMS Sabre, detailed to meet the first slow Atlantic convoy, as it approached the United Kingdom from Canada.

A Finnish merchant ship, Elle 3,868 tons was torpedoed at 04.25hrs on the 28th and Sabre joined the hunt for the German U-boat (U-101) without success.

Then two days later, during the evening of 30 August off Malin Head Sabre helped rescue the survivors of a torpedoed (by German submarine U-60) Dutch ship the 15,000 tons Holland America line, SS Volendam.

The Miracle of Dunkirk, (1998), Walter Lord, Wordsworth military Library, ISBN 1-85326-685-X The Gourock Times of 6 September 1940: Newspaper Article about the torpedoing of SS Volendam, "HMS Unbroken (P 42)".