SEVEN DROWNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 19, 24 January 1939, Page 7

SEVEN DROWNED.

RESCUERS' FATE. St. Ives Lifeboat Overwhelmed By Enormous Sea. CHANNEL GALE TRAGEDY. (Received 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, January 23. It is . believed seven men wer6 drowned when the St. Ives lifeboat was lost in a terrific north-westerly gale. One member of the crew, named Freeman, was washed ashore, injured. The crew was practically the same as that "which went out to the steamer Alba on January 31, 1938, when the lifeboat capsized, but all the men were saved. The Penlee lifeboat returned after searching for the St. Ives crew and finding no trace. The St. Ives Lifeboat Association has announced that the families of those drowned will be pensioned. The crew was commanded by the 63-year-old coxswain, Mr. Thomas Cocking, whose crew in 15 months had saved 66 lives. Those drowned include Mr. Clocking's son and son-in-law, and also two brothers named Barber. The lifeboat was launched at 3 a.m. to-day in response to a summons from a steamer in distress between St. Ives and Land's End. The boat met the full fury of the gale when it left the shelter of St. Ives Bay. A red flare indicated that the lifeboat needed help, but after that there was no sign. It is believed a huge sea washed- overboard seven of the crew, the of whom were married men with families. Mr. Freeman was able to cling to the boat, which was later washed ashore. The Padstow lifeboat also put out to a steamer disabled owing to the gale. The steamer went ashore. Three of the crew were saved, but a fourth is feared to have been drowned.