Claim: Leonard Small was a chaplain in France during World War II when the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk, an event also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, during which Small left the country himself via Saint-Nazaire.
Evidence: In 1940, he was serving as a chaplain in France when the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk; he left the country via Saint-Nazaire and narrowly avoided travelling on the doomed RMS Lancastria. The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940.