A Common Misconception About Dunkirk
I always thought the evacuation of Dunkirk was unplanned. That the English people heard their boys were stuck on the shores of France and the ones with boats said, “I can go get a few,” so they did. Turns out, that isn’t exactly how it happened. I wrote about the man who planned it here.
There was one large evacuation that did happen the way I pictured Dunkirk happening. In fact, more people were evacuated in less time than Dunkirk. It happened on a day that everyone who was alive remembers.
September 11th, 2001.
Manhattan Is an Island
Those of us who don’t live in New York tend to forget that Manhattan is an island. There are subway tunnels connecting it to the rest of the city. There are bridges that connect it. But on the day that the two towers fell, those connections failed.
People streamed to the southern tip of the island. 500,000 people. There are slips for ferries on the southern end of Manhattan, and people started boarding immediately.
The Men Already on the Water
Kirk Slater was a captain of one of the ferry boats that operated in the waters around Manhattan. He described seeing the second plane hit. He was already taking passengers when the first tower fell. The cloud that the first tower generated blocked everyone’s sight, and it was at this point that people panicked.
James Parese was the captain of the Staten Island Ferry. He spoke of not knowing what was going on, of wondering if the city was being bombed. He also wondered if people would carry bombs on his ship. But he still took on passengers.
One Radio Call
Commander Michael Day of the U.S. Coast Guard spotted a small boat at the tip of Manhattan. He saw the number of passengers on it and thought it might flip over. Then he looked at the crowds waiting and said to himself, “This has to get better organized.”
He sent out a call over the radio.
All available boats. This is the United States Coast Guard, aboard the pilot boat, New York. Anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of lower Manhattan, report to Governor’s Island.
The Coast Guard was uncertain who would come. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, boats stretched across the horizon.
Robin Jones, an engineer aboard the Mary Gellatly, said it simply. “When that call came on the radio, they were coming.”
The captain of the Staten Island Ferry commented that when he pulled out of the dust cloud, all he saw were tugboats. He had never seen so many tugboats. According to Jones, “If it floated and it could get there, it got there. I worked on the water for twenty-eight years. I’ve never seen so many boats come together at one time that fast. One radio call and it just came together that fast.”
Into the Dust Cloud
As the boats pulled up to the slips, they disappeared into the dust cloud. The people who emerged from it were covered with dust.
One captain commented that the Coast Guard did not ask how many people their ship was allowed to carry. They simply asked, “How many can you fit?”
At first, the people didn’t care where the boats were going. But over the hours, boats started taking sheets from their cabins and painting their destination on them, then hanging the sheets so passengers could have a better idea of which boat would fit their plans.
The Moments People Remember
As is typical in such a large operation, it is the tiny incidents that people remember.
One deckhand remembered four men lifting a blind woman and her seeing-eye dog over the rails so she could get aboard. Another remembered seeing the reunion of a husband and wife, and it giving him the energy to keep going.
More Than an Evacuation
Before long, the boats were not only taking people off Manhattan. They were taking emergency workers to Manhattan. They were taking water. They were taking food. And over time, they were taking supplies that were donated from across the country.
More people were evacuated from Manhattan in nine hours than were evacuated from Dunkirk in six days. But the story didn’t end that afternoon. The boats kept working. They stocked the canteen for the workers at Ground Zero. They carried huge donations of food and clothing. They worked for days after 9/11, transporting whatever needed to be transported.
And so few have ever even heard of what they did.
Where to Learn More
There is a short documentary about the boatlift that circulates online. I first watched it years ago and enjoyed returning to it for this blog post. You can find it here, and I highly recommend it.
During my research, I also learned that a feature film about the boatlift is scheduled for release on September 11, 2026. I obviously can’t recommend a movie I haven’t seen, but it certainly has an extraordinary true story as its backdrop.
Don’t Lose Sight of This
The comparisons to Dunkirk are inevitable. It’s true that crossing the English Channel is a much longer voyage than crossing New York Harbor. It’s also true that the little ships at Dunkirk came under enemy fire, while the boats evacuating Manhattan did not.
But don’t lose sight of one important fact. The captains who answered the Coast Guard’s call didn’t know there wouldn’t be another attack. They had already watched two airliners strike the World Trade Center. They had watched the towers collapse. They didn’t know if another plane was coming.
They only knew people needed help.
So they came.
