William Tennant ( Royal Navy officer ) Admiral Sir William George " Bill " Tennant KCB CBE MVO DL ( 2 January 1890 – 26 July 1963 ) was a British naval officer . He was lauded for overseeing the successful evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 . Tennant subsequently served as captain of the battlecruiser HMS " Repulse " , when it searched for German capital ships in the Atlantic . He remained in this capacity when the " Repulse " was sunk by the Japanese along with HMS " Prince of Wales " in the South China Sea on 10 December 1941 , three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . He later aided in the setup of the Mulberry harbour s and the Pluto pipelines , a crucial part of the success of Operation Overlord . Biography . Born in Upton - upon - Severn and educated at nearby Hanley Castle Grammar School , Tennant joined the Royal Navy at age 15 in 1905 , serving onboard HMS " Britannia " , eventually specializing in navigation in 1913 . He later served in the First World War during the Gallipoli campaign and survived the sinking of his ship at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 . After the war , Tennant joined the crew of HMS " Renown " and his future command , HMS " Repulse " , during the future King Edward VIII ' s royal tours in the 1920s . By 1932 , Tennant had achieved the rank of Captain . World War II . Dunkirk Evacuation . On 26 May 1940 , Captain Tennant was dispatched on board the destroyer HMS " Wolfhound " to Dunkirk to aid in the evacuation of more than 300 , 000 British and French troops left stranded when France fell to the Nazis . Tennant ' s task was to organize these dispirited men and get them onto the boats waiting to take them . Tennant stayed right up until the last boats left on 2 June , patrolling the beaches of Dunkirk with a megaphone searching for British troops . Tennant was lauded for his efforts at Dunkirk , and was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath on 7 June 1940 . The ordinary sailors under his command took to calling him " Dunkirk Joe " . Captain of the " Repulse " . On 28 June Tennant became captain of the battlecruiser " Repulse " , taking part in battles against the German battleships " Scharnhorst " and " Gneisenau " , and later in the hunt for the battleship " Bismarck " . Loss of the " Repulse " . Tennant and " Repulse " joined Admiral Sir Tom Phillips ' Force Z , sent to Singapore to counter Japanese aggression in the Pacific , in December 1941 . On 8 December , the day after the Attack on Pearl Harbor , Singapore came under attack by Japanese air units , and Force Z departed for Malaya to attack a Japanese convoy , an operation that was cancelled shortly thereafter . Upon returning to Singapore , they received word of Japanese landings on Malaya , and Force Z - without air cover - made for Malaya to counter them . On 10 December the Japanese attacked Force Z . Tennant ably managed to avoid nineteen torpedoes dropped from Japanese aircraft , but " Repulse " eventually succumbed to a pincer attack , taking five torpedoes ; she sunk within twenty minutes , taking a great deal of the crew with her . The survivors , including Captain Tennant , were rescued by HMAS " Vampire " , one of the destroyers in Force Z . Normandy . In June 1944 , Tennant - now an admiral - was placed in charge of the naval side of the transport , assembly and setup of the two Mulberry harbour s that provided port facilities for the coming invasion of Normandy . In August , he supervised the laying of the Pluto pipelines between France and England , which provided much needed fuel supplies for the ongoing conflict . For his efforts in the success of the Normandy invasion , Tennant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by King George VI , and also received the United States Legion of Merit . Post - war service . Tennant was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1945 for his war service , and made commander of the America and West Indies Station after the war ended , and remained there until he retired in 1949 as a full admiral . In 1950 , he was named Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire , serving until his death at the Worcester Royal Infirmary in 1963 . In popular culture . In the TV series " Dunkirk " , Captain Tennant is played by Adrian Rawlins .