Ongoing evacuation effort at Dunkirk.

On 27 May, the first full day of the evacuation, active were one cruiser, eight destroyers, and twenty-six other craft.  Admiralty officers combed nearby boatyards for small craft that could ferry personnel from the beaches out to larger craft in the harbour, as well as larger vessels that could load from the docks. An emergency call was put out for additional help, and by 31 May nearly four hundred small craft were voluntarily and enthusiastically taking part in the effort. Also on 27 May, the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Dunkirk, both the town and the dock installations. As the water supply was knocked out, the resulting fires could not be extinguished. An estimated thousand civilians were killed, one-third of the remaining population of the town.  The Luftwaffe was met by sixteen squadrons of the Royal Air Force, who claimed 38 kills on the 27th while experiencing the loss of 14 aircraft.^[Altogether over 3,500 sorties were flown in support of Operation Dynamo. The RAF continued to take a heavy toll on the German bombers throughout the week. Soldiers being bombed and strafed while awaiting transport were for the most part unaware of the efforts of the RAF to protect them, as most of the dogfights took place far from the beaches. As a result, many British soldiers bitterly accused the airmen of doing nothing to help. Knowing the truth of it, Churchill made a point of stating in his address in the House on 4 June that the evacuation had been made possible through the efforts of the Air Force.