ON MAY 18, 1940, a strange looking and rather pathetic armada sailed up Southampton Water bringing with it the first wave of what would become a flood of refugees fleeing for their lives.

On board the ragged collection of crafts, made up of fishing trawlers and barges to a harbour master’s launch and stoutly built tugs, the decks were crammed with people of all ages seeking sanctuary in the face of the invading forces of Hitler’s Third Reich.

This long line of vessels heading towards the quayside of Southampton docks was the first of many such convoys that people would witness in the coming weeks as desperate European refugees, many of whom had nothing to their name and brought just the clothes they were wearing, sought the relative safety of Britain.

The arrival of these huddled masses was urgent and unexpected work for Southampton’s wartime organisations which were already hard pressed preparing for the potential aftermath of enemy bombing raids.

Just a few months earlier coded messages had been sent to corporation chiefs emphasising the imminence of possible large scale numbers of injured or homeless people and so the arrival of thousands of refugees was an added and serious concern for the authorities.

Within a week of the first refugee setting foot in Southampton, the numbers of Belgian, Dutch and French men, women and children arriving in the port was on an enormous scale.

Each person had to be medically examined as they came ashore, cubicles were built in the customs sheds on the dockside, and through these makeshift facilities every single refugee had to file before officially registering their arrival.

At the time the Daily Echo reported: "The first vessel arrived shortly after 10am and it was not long before the first of the sad procession of homeless and broken-hearted people started to file down the gangway.

“All that remained was the scant belongings they brought with them, some in suitcases, others carried baskets.

“After a medical they were then each handed a bag containing pies, biscuits, chocolate and a cake as well as being offered a cup of tea. They also drew an emergency ration of a tin of corned beef and a tin of condensed milk. Many of the men brought bicycles and practically nothing else and there were mothers who wheeled perambulators ashore.

“The women generally displayed remarkable fortitude, but some, in deep mourning, wept pitifully. Some children, bereft of parents and homes, that were found sleeping in the streets had been taken on board one of the refugee ships where foster-mothers were found for them.”

When eventually a medical history of the Second World War was written in 1953, a detailed description of the role Southampton had played in coping with the sudden influx of refugees said: "Some of the refugees were verminous and had to be bathed; some were suffering from infectious diseases; many were ill through worry.

“Right up to the end of July the refugees came in their thousands and then later in a thinning stream. By the beginning of September that year, 6,147 Belgians, Dutch and French refugees had landed. In the middle of these arrivals, there also came 2,424 refugees from the Channel Islands, all of whom arrived between June 20 and June 29.

“Public assistance institutions, sports halls and other buildings in the town were used to give them shelter, until arrangements could be made for their permanent care. Most of the Channel Islanders were sent to Barnsley or Wakefield.”

A Southampton committee for refugees was established and would continue its work for another ten years before being wound up in May, 1949.

Southampton people organised social events, others offered free English lessons while pocket money, cigarettes and food parcels were gathered together and sent to the refugees.