THE RYE TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 9

THE RYE TRAGEDY

BURIAL OF LIFEBOATMEN FIFTEEN IN ONE GRAVE INQUIRY TO BE HELD INTO DISASTER . (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, November 20. Fifteen of the seventeen lifeboatmen of Rye. Harbour, who were drowned last Thursday, were buried in one big grave in the churchyard of their home village to-day. The bodies of two of the drowned lifeboatmen have not yet been given up by the sea. Enormous crowds attended the funeral. Men of the British Legion dug the grave and legionaries were among the pallbearers, who were mainly lifeboatmen. A band played funeral marches. Because of the press the public service was held in the graveyard and not in the church. The crews of many other lifeboats along the coast were present. Nearly every family in the little hamlet of Rye Harbour had lost someone in the disaster, and the scenes at the graveside were pathetic in the extreme.

Mr. Williams, Under-Secretary of the Board of Trade, stated in the House of Commons that his Department had decided to hold an inquiry into all the circumstances of the disaster. The inquiry would cover certain allegations that had been made regarding defects in the lifebelts worn by the dead lifeboatmen.