NINETEEN MEN SAVED

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1942, Page 4

NINETEEN MEN SAVED

MERCHANT CAPTAIN’S SKILL

LONDON. January 30. Thirty years ago a boy approaching his ’teens “knocked about in the water” with sailing-boats near his home at Leigh-on-Sea. The boy gave up his sailing-boats and went to sea in merchant ships. Nine years ago he became a captain. A few months ago his ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic while in convoy bringing food to Britain. His boyhood experience of “knocking about in the water” at Leigh-on-Sea came back to him. He sailed 19 men 100 miles across the Atlantic in 14 days to the safety of the Irish coast — in a ship’s boat. The other day the boy who knocked about in sailing boats and became a merchant captain was told that he had been made an 0.8. E. The boy of 30 years ago, now Captain J. W. Klemp, who lives in Twickenham, said in an interview:

“I have been on shore since our sailing trip with frost-bitten feet. They are recovering, and I hope to be at sea again shortly. I am fed up with being on shore.”