Veteran Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) 102 will be escorting a ferry carrying D-Day veterans as they travel from Portsmouth to France on Saturday June 5 for the commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

But she so nearly might not have been able to make it at all.

For in the early hours of April 30, a Lowestoft boatshed caught fire – with the MTB sitting high and dry just four feet away.

The MTB — a veteran of Dunkirk, and which, under the name Vimy, carried Churchill and Eisenhower when they reviewed the ships assembled on the coast for the D-Day landings — escaped, apart from debris on her foredeck, without so much as a scratch.

Sadly, another irreplaceable historic vessel, the World War II gun boat MGB60, which was undergoing restoration inside the shed, was not so fortunate.

Only the transom and a small section of the keel of the vessel — owned by the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust — were left.

MTB 102 skipper Richard Basey told Navy News: “I first heard a report on the radio at breakfast time saying that 75 per cent of the boatyard had been destroyed, including an historic MTB.

“My immediate thought was ‘we’ve lost her’, but, thankfully, it turned out to be misleading.”

The quick thinking of a member of the Lowestoft fire crew prevented a double disaster.

With the shed well alight, it was decided to set up a water wall between building and vessel, which was kept up throughout the night while the fire was brought under control.

“I shall buy Leading Firefighter Peaper a crate of beer when I get the opportunity,” said Mr Basey.

Undeterred by her brush with mortality – the fire, it is said, was started deliberately – MTB 102 was due to join HMS Belfast in the Pool of London as part of the D-Day events.

After that the craft is due for a poignant encounter in Portsmouth with the veterans.