DOWN AT SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 59, 7 September 1937, Page 12

DOWN AT SEA

BRITISH FLYING-BOAT

RESCUE BY DUTCH FISHERMEN

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received September 7, 1.30 p.m.")

RUGBY, September 6.

The crew of a Royal Air Force fly-ing-boat, which made a forced landing in the North Sea yesterday and was drifting helplessly for some hours, were safely landed at Scarborough today. They, had been rescued by a Dutch fishing boat, and came • ashore wearing clothes and wooden clogs borrowed from the Dutchmen.

While they were taking part in: exercises in the North Sea '■ yesterday, one of the two engines of the flyingboat failed, and after the machine had limped along for some miles on the remaining engine a petrol pipe broke. Drifting on the edge of the Dogger Bank with a gale of wind and very heavy seas threatening to swamp tha boat, the crew had to wait one and a half hours before the Dutch fishing boat came, to the rescue, arid, it was then nearly two hours before' a 1 ropa could be got to them. The first towrope broke, but eventually the flyingboat was got in tow and the fishing boat headed for Scarborough. It was getting dark and sea water had entered the flying-b'bat and put the wireless out of action, so the officer in command decided to get his men-to safety in tha fishing boat. They roped themselve3 together, jumpdd into the sea, and.were hauled 30 yards through the waves to the rescue ship;