Lt Cmdr L. H. Earley, pictured on June 4, 1948, at Palace Pier, Brighton, UK.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of 338,226 Allied troops from the harbour and the beaches of Dunkirk between May 27 and June 4, 1940.

As an RN engineer aboard HMS Albury, my uncle, Louis ‘Tooloo’ Earley, did six round-trips to Dunkirk. In total, they rescued 1,800 troops. Among them was Winston Churchill’s nephew, Captain Johnny Churchill, allegedly keen to get back and report to the prime minister.

Louis (or Lewis) Hedley Earley MBE served for 33 years in the royal navy. However, he spent most of his service and retirement in St Julian’s. He married a local girl, Louisa, and had four children: Louise, Isobel, Victoria and Ernest, who I lost contact with. I knew my uncle ‘Tooloo’ and his family well while I was stationed at 39 Sqn, RAF Luqa in the early 1960s.

I would love to think his current family would take warm pride from how brave, courageous and what a larger-than-life person their father, grandfather and great-grandfather truly was. Also, that he is fondly remembered by my family in the UK.

Allow me to mention one more fact of this great man’s life: 25 years prior to Dunkirk he was, age 18, serving in the much-shelled HMS Grafton at the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign.

He wrote a very detailed daily journal of events which my son, Nigel, had donated to the Imperial War Museum, London, and which they gladly accepted.