BRAVEST DEEDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 April 1938, Page 4

BRAVEST DEEDS

DRAMAS OF THE .SEA. The Stanhope Gold Medal for the bravest deed of the year has been presented by the Royal Humane Society to Ernest Hill, formerly of Fleetwood, and now of Hull, says the “Manchester Guardian.”

On November 8, 1936, while the steam trawler Northern Spray was shooting her trawl in bad weather off the west coast of Iceland, a deckhand, Harold Daniels, aged 18, of Fleetwood, got his foot caught in a bight of a rope and was dragged overboard and swept astern in the darkness. Hill dived overboard in full fishing kit and seaboots and found Daniels virtually collapsed. Both men were hauled alongside. The skipper climbed down a rope aud took Daniels out of Hill’s grasp. The rescue took fifteen to twenty minutes to effect, and both men required treatment after beinghauled on board.

Early last year the society awarded the silver medal to Hill. Hill is a deckhand on the trawler Goth. He is twenty-eight years of age and is the only one of four brothers to choose a seafaring career. He has been reticent about the rescue. The silver medal and the certificate of the Royal Humane Society in recognition of his bravery were presented to Hill by Commander Hawkridge, manager and secretary of the Hull Trawlers’ Insurance Company, on June 30 last pt the headquarters of the .ishiiio iituusL.. ohe „rt. BEST WRECK SERVICE. The Board of ’Trade’s shield award for the “best wreck service of the year” has been made to the Rhossili company for its night rescue by rocket apparatus of ten of the crew of the Roche Castle on January 10 last year. The trawler grounded in fog off the rocky Gower coast about twelve miles from Swansea. Mumbles lifeboat was launched, but was powerless, and it seemed as if there was little hope for the trawler’s crew when the Rhossili company’s lorry, heavy with gear and men, sank deep in the mud a mile from the wreck.

The gear was finally hauled over the sloping cliff to within 180 yards of the vessel. If the crew had come ashore when contact was first made probably all would have been saved, but they signalled that they would remain on board in an effort to save the trawler.

When the cre-w saw that there was no hope of saving the vessel they decided at 1.45 a.m. to come ashore, and realising that conditions were desperate attempted to get into the buoy two at a time. One was catapulted into the air when the buoy was jerked suddenly as the vessel was tossed to and fro in the heavy seas. He was drowned. The other man was alternately flung high into the air and completely submerged in swirling surf which covered dangerous pinnacles of rock. Eventually he was thrown clear into the surf and was brought to safety. The hawser was set up as taut as possible and members of the crew came ashore singly in the buoy. The men were saved in threequarters of an hour. The Board of Trade awarded to the district officer a silver bowl iu recognition of his leadership and courage.