One of the largest paddle steamers afloat in Britain is the H.M.S. Royal Eagle, former peacetime excursion boat which carried passengers on pleasure jaunts from Tower Bridge to Southend, Ramscate and Margate. Commissioned two years ago as a warship of the Royal Navy, the craft has been in action 52 times against enemy aircraft. The Eagle took part in the evacuation from Dunkirk where she was dive-bombed 48 times and brought home nearly 3,000 British troops. Members of the crew cleaning the paddle boxes of H.M.S. Royal Eagle in London on January 18, 1943. (Photo by AP Photo)

Members of the Apollo Rainbow Dancers stretch out in special A train late on May 4, 1985, in New York. The legendary Apollo Theatre celebrated its 50th anniversary in an official reopening after a 15 month refurbishing with a celebrity studded evening. (Photo by Ray Stubblebine/AP Photo)

Cambridge policemen, known as “Bulldogs”, lined up for the University Bulldogs Chase, dressed in morning coats and top hats, 7th March 1936. (Photo by H. Allen/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Vietnamese troops march during a parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of independence in Hanoi, Vietnam Tuesday, September 2, 2025. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

Long streams of red-hot lava flow down the southeast crater of Mount Etna, Europe's tallest and most active volcano, seen from Zafferana Etnea, Italy, June 11, 2022. (Photo by Antonio Parrinello/Reuters)

A red deer stag in Bushy Park, southwest London, pulls a comical face for the camera in the second decade of November 2023. (Photo by Andrew Wood/Caters News Agency)

A visitor feeds a food pellet to a giraffe in the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, Kenya January 15, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Elena from Dresden has her hair ruffled by the wind as she stands on a visitors' platform on the Maintower in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, during stormy weather on February 22, 2017. (Photo by Arne Dedert/AFP Photo/DPA)