BOATMAN RESCUES COMMANDOS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 15

BOATMAN RESCUES COMMANDOS

Interruption Of Exercise (Rec. 11 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Dec. 17. A young Point Lonsdale boatman, Norman Hunt, will not receive any thanks from the Army for his “rescue” of eight commandos in Port Phillip Bay yesterday. An Army spokesman said today that Mr Hunt had interrupted an important part of the military exercise the soldiers were engaged in. “However, we appreciate his spirit in what he thought was an emergency,” he said. Mr Hunt said yesterday that he and his brother, Douglas Hunt, aged 14, heard the soldiers calling for help after the motors of their rubber boats had stalled. He took them in tow because he thought that they were in danger of being swept through the rip towards breakers pounding on Corsair rock, he said. The Army spokesman explained that the two boats were in an ouerational under-water demolition exercise and that a safety boat was standing by in case anything went wrong. When both boats’ motors stalled the occupants called the attention of the safety boat, which was ready to help when Mr Hunt took them in tow, he said. However, Mr Hunt today gave a different version of the rescue from that given by the Army spokesman. There was no doubt that the two boats would have capsized and the men possibly drowned if he had not gone to the rescue, Mr Hunt said. “They were frantically waving and screaming for help, so I pushed off in my 22ft fishing craft and threw them a line when they were about 15 feet off a rock. “I know these waters extremely well, and no-one could have survived yesterday’s current,” he said.