As has become custom, the Dartmouth Museum AGM was lent excitement by the screening of a film that had links to Dartmouth. Brian Parker, Museum Trustee, explained:

“When they rowed back to the MTB, it wasn’t there.

“It was a moon-less night in June 1944 off the coast of Brittany. Earlier a Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) had quietly slipped out of the Dart across the Channel to land two Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents onto French soil.

“The MTB nosed in as close as it dared and a surf boat dinghy, with a lieutenant and two sailors, took the agents ashore. The operation was successfully completed without alarm being raised and they rowed back out to rendezvous with their MTB; but it wasn’t there.

“The approach of an enemy vessel meant that the MTB had to steal away to avoid the secret of this landing place, used many times before, being blown.

“This presented the abandoned seamen with a monumental problem. Somehow, they had to avoid capture.

“If still in the dinghy come daylight, they would be surely spotted. They decided to row back to the shore, deflate and hide the boat and take to the countryside, putting as much distance between the landing place and themselves as possible.

“They had, properly, no knowledge of the SOE contacts so had to trust to instinct and luck. ‘Luck was on their side; although the place was crawling with German troops, these were the less competent White Russian and Polish units, the better troops having been transferred to the Normandy beachhead 200 miles away to the east, and they were not spotted.

“They had to take a chance in randomly contacting a French citizen and hope that they had not chosen someone with Vichy sympathies. Again, they were lucky and their contact managed to get them to a safe house.

“This was part of an established escape line that had managed to rescue and return to England over a hundred RAF and other servicemen. After several weeks of waiting their turn, the MTB men were repatriated to the Dart.”

Mr Parker continued,”The Museum was honoured to have present at the AGM and the screening, the French Honorary Consul Alain Sibiril and his wife Monique. Alain is one of the commentators in the film.

“The officer in the dinghy in charge of transfer was Lieut. Guy Hamilton DSC RNVR. After the war, he became a distinguished film director, responsible for the James Bond 007 film Goldfinger and three others. It is said that his films were an extension of his wartime experiences.

“This microcosm of wartime operations by the 15th MGB Flotilla out of the Dart was the subject of a film shown on BBC’s Inside Out earlier this year. The maker, Andrew Johnstone, agreed to show it again at Dartmouth Museum’s AGM.

“Every year, after a brief formal meeting, there is a presentation of great interest. Last week was no exception; a film of wartime experiences recounted by ever fewer survivors, Hamilton himself passing on this time last year at the age of 93.

“In the film, two ladies in their nineties, Anne and Margritte, held the audience spellbound. In 1944, they would have been in their late teens or early twenties and in the utmost of dangers.

“What would have happened to them, had they been caught, can be seen in the museum in Caen, which has photographs on display of a young girl before and after execution. “Anne and Margritte told their tales simply but there could be no doubt in those watching that they were in the presence of two true heroines of France.

At the conclusion of the film, Mr Parker, summarised the performance of the museum: “Once again, visitor numbers around 10,000, finances in good state, new members joining and assisting by being stewards (thanks to Carol Lingard’s expert rostering), and, above all, the ‘captaincy of the ship’ by David Lingard, Cdr RN Ret. The Museum continues to have a bright future as it displays the past.”