VE Day 2025

This year marks 80 years since the end of the Second World War and this VE Day, on Thursday 8 May, we’re joining in the celebrations with a workshop open day and the screening of a very special film.

A WWII Replica

Over the last few months, the Museum’s boatbuilding team have been sensitively recreating a small boat that played a big role in the Second World War. From the Helford River, not far from the Museum, Special Operations Executive (SOE) missions launched vessels heading to the shores of occupied France. Brave operatives would navigate small boats to within a kilometre of enemy coastlines, before being rowed ashore to inhospitable beaches, delivering crucial supplies to the French Resistance.

Using the original line drawings of the S.N.2 discovered in the National Maritime Museum Greenwich archives, the team are faithfully recreating the boat in the Museum’s Workshop. On Thursday 8 May the Workshop will be open for visitors to meet the team behind the build, to see how work is progressing and find out more about the secretive work of these boats.

The Workshop is open all day and visitors are welcome to drop in.

Boat collection Manager, Bob White, during the lofting of the S.N.2.

Film of MGB 318

Throughout the day you can watch a silent film of the last and only daylight mission of the 15^th Motor Gunboat Flotilla.

The 15^th MGB Flotilla was the most decorated Naval unit of the war. Based at Dartmouth, they had a forward operating base at Falmouth and worked closely with both Naval Intelligence and the Special Operations Executive based on the Helford Estuary.

They made many clandestine, nighttime visits to the Brittany coast to land secret agents, supply the French Resistance with arms and ammunition and to pick up escaping allied airmen. The film shows the officers and crew meeting those who, until then, had only been known as whispers and shapes in the night.

Viewable throughout the day in the Sunley Lecture Theatre.

What else is at National Maritime Museum Cornwall?

Explore 15 galleries over five floors, climb the 100-foot Lookout Tower, go underwater in the Tidal Zone, uncover ocean adventures and survival stories and sail miniature boats on the Boat Pool. Plus, learn about Cornish maritime history in our Cornwall galleries, dive into Cornish surf history, past, present and future, in our latest major exhibition SURF! and take a pit stop in the Museum’s Waterside Cafe.

It’s free!

The VE Day activities are FREE as part of the Museum’s annual admission fee. Pay once and get in free for a year.