SS Levenwood at Dunkirk

My grandfather Robert Moody was awarded the DSM at Dunkirk. His vessel the SS Levenwood arrived during an air raid in gusting wind on Friday 31st May. The ship was crewed by Scotsman and Geordies and alongside her lay the Whitstable who had only managed to rescue a handful of men due to offshore currents. The Scots captain William Oswald Young drove Levenwood as far toward the beach as he could, treading water whilst attacked by Stukas. He sent my Grandfather overboard, who was often used by Northumberland Police as a diver, who swam repeatedly through the swell to help recover around 60 men. The ships gunner George Knight also won the DSM whilst the Captain was awarded the DSC. Sixty men was not a large number at Dunkirk but the circumstances of Levenwood's activities make it a remarkable little story. One French soldier that had clung to my Grandfather- as he was unable to swim- later sent my own father (then a boy of course) chocolate from France for years after the war. Levenwood was constantly bombed and machine gunned and all the anecdotal research I've conducted suggests these men acted out of nothing but duty and pride.Apart from a small mention in John Harris's book 'Dunkirk'in 1980 Levenwood is largely ignored today but it is a first rate example of the Dunkirk Spirit. Levenwood was eventually sunk off Cleveland in 1943.

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