With Britain on the brink of defeat, a flotilla of Brighton fishing boats set sail from Sussex for Dunkirk.

The Royal Navy was desperately trying to rescue the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force which had been shattered by the German Blitzkrieg through France and Belgium.

But the Navy was struggling to cope with the sheer volume of frightened, demoralised and hungry men waiting to be rescued. Dozens of warships and troop carriers were sunk by enemy aircraft, which bombed and strafed at will.

For the thousands of soldiers stranded on the beaches, waiting restlessly in the sand dunes, there appeared little chance of escape. But that is when the miracle happened.

Scores of small rescue vessels, most crewed by civilians, made the perilous voyage across the Channel.

Among them were 16 Brighton fishing boats: Skylarks 1-4 (two of which were sunk), the May Queen, Fair Irene, Pop Gun, Marie J. Leach, Favourite, Challenger, Dorothy Helena, Our Doris, Marie Joyce, Royal Rose, Seaflower and Our Johnny.

Brothers George and Charlie Watts skippered two of the boats.

Years later Charlie, who served on board the four-ton trawler Challenger, recalled the terrifying scenes at Dunkirk, where he narrowly escaped death.

He said: "I lay down in the bottom of the boat. I remember my face was a few inches away from a big tin of hard tack and a duffle coat hanging on a peg.

"There was a tremendous explosion and shrapnel hissed all round me. The coat was torn to shreds and the tin was hit by a lump as big as my fist. It was a very near thing."

George was skipper of the Pop Gun. He survived unscathed but suffered severe shock and died four months later in hospital at the age of 45.

Charlie, who lived at Elmore Road, Brighton, said: "He wasn't hit at all, but I am sure the evacuation killed him."

Dunkirk tends to overshadow an even more dramatic rescue bid a week later along the coast at St Valery, where the survivors of the 51st Highland Division were fighting for their lives.

Once again, Brighton fishermen were in the vanguard. Charlie said: "No one told us anything about where we were going but we all thought it was another Dunkirk. We were towed across to Le Havre in strings of ten by two tugs. We anchored there for a day and then we sailed to the beaches at St Valery. But it was nothing like Dunkirk.

"The Germans had taken the high cliffs and were expecting us. Twice we tried to go in and twice we failed. The fire was murderous. Then the naval officer in charge saw that the Germans were down on the beaches and we were told to scatter."

As the small boats steered desperately to get out of range, German planes came in to finish them off. They were saved by sudden, heavy fog.

Charlie, who recorded his experiences in 1965 aged 62, said: "We were like sitting ducks and there was nothing we could do. That fog was the nicest thing I ever saw."

Tom Markwick, of Oriental Place, Brighton, said the St Valery operation was a disaster: "There's no other word for it. When we approached St Valery we saw the beaches were practically overrun. Some Frenchmen rowed out in a dinghy under very heavy fire and were picked up. Five planes bombed us and I wore a cabbage strainer for a tin hat. Several boats were hit and one was sunk just a few feet away from us. I think it was an Eastbourne craft.

"One plane made several determined runs and strafed us with machine gun fire. We had a Lewis gun on the bows and the young naval rating held his fire until the last possible minute. Then he banged away and hit it."

Today, most of the fishermen who took part in the Dunkirk and St Valery operations are dead, but their families remember.

George Watts, 84, runs a fishmonger's shop in St James's Street, Brighton. In 1940 he was serving on the battleship HMS Malaya in Gibraltar.

He is positive the scenes at Dunkirk, combined with the terror of constant air attacks, brought on his father's premature death.