This is tricky, because we have few records available on how men travelled across the Channel. A total of 308,888 troops were transported in British ships, while another 48,474 were carried in French ships (of which, some 26,314 were carried directly to French ports). The majority of these troops were carried from Dunkirk harbour - per the British Army's official history of the evacuation, only roughly 96,000 men were evacuated from the beaches. This left over 260,000 men who were evacuated from the harbour and harbour moles. These were typically used by the larger ships of the Royal Navy, French Navy and Merchant Navy, as well as naval trawlers and the like. This was because the harbour and moles were the only place where these ships could come alongside and load men in the most efficient way. There was little need for the 'little ships' as a result (off the beaches, they were needed as the ships couldn't come alongside). However, there were cases where they were used in the harbour; on the last night of the evacuation, following the last destroyers leaving, a number of the 'little ships' carried troops from the harbour back to the UK. On the 31st May, six Thames Bawley boats, with volunteer crews, were convoyed over. They mainly carried troops to ships waiting outside the harbour, but also making a single trip back to the UK while loaded with troops. Even so, the overwhelming majority of troops carried from the harbour would not have passed through one of the 'little ships'.

Given this, it might be tempting to assume that the troops taken off from the beaches were all carried (at least part of the way) in civilian craft. To do so would be incorrect. Firstly, while the evacuation from the beaches began on the 27th, the first requisitioned craft did not reach the beaches until the 29th. For those two days, ships off the beaches used mainly their own dinghies and small boats - for example, the boats of the destroyers Jaguar and Javelin carried some 700 men to the destroyers on the afternoon of the 28th. Similarly, on the night of the 27th, a force of 17 naval drifters rescued ~2000 men using their own boats. Secondly, even after the requisitioned craft arrived, naval and military craft continued to play a significant part in the operation. The BEF provided a considerable number of its own assault boats and pontoons, each typically carrying 10 men at a trip. From the RN, six MTBs, three anti-submarine launches, and a number of landing craft, large motorboats (from the shore bases Dolphin and Excellent) and ship's boats took part. The RAF provided several seaplane tenders. All of these operated between the beaches and ships offshore, or carried troops back to the UK. Both of these will confuse any attempt to estimate how many troops were carried in private ships - while pretty much all of the troops coming off the beaches were carried in a 'little ship', we have little record of whether or not they were carried in a civilian craft or in a military one.

To estimate how many of the 'little ships', both military and civilian, carried troops back to the UK, we can look at the breakdown of arrivals provided in Admiral Ramsey's report in the London Gazette. A total of 36,660 men were carried in vessels coming under the general heading of 'miscellaneous', while another 15,002 were carried in 'other vessels', giving a total of 51,662 men carried in such craft compared to over 100,000 carried in destroyers or 74,380 carried in 'personnel carriers'. However, the numbers for miscellaneous ships seems mainly to refer to those carried in ships like the AA cruiser Calcutta or gunboats Mosquito and Locust. The 'little ships' seem more likely to come under the heading of 'other vessels', itself a rather broad category. Even so, 15,000 seems a reasonable upper bound for the number of troops carried to the UK by the 'little ships'. Its also worth noting that, of the 206 British civilian casualties that occurred during the evacuation, only six were civilian volunteers. The remainder were merchant seamen, manning the larger vessels.