COXSWAIN’S COURAGE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20618, 20 November 1941, Page 5

COXSWAIN’S COURAGE

EMPIRE MEDAL AWARD RESCUE BY LIFEBOAT (British Official Wireless.) Reed, 9 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. -9. The rescue by the Cromer lifeboat of 88 men from ships ashore on the sands are recognised by the award of the British Empire Medal to Coxswain H. G. Blogg for courage and resolution. A call for the lifeboat was received to help six ships on the sands. Eighteen minutes later the boat was launched. It was blowing a gale, with hard squalls and wind and rain and the tide soon began to ebb. When the ships were reached the coxswain took his boat over the submerged deck of the first ship, again and again bumping heavily until the whole of the surviving crew of 16 had been hauled aboard from the the bridge. Next he went alongside a ship and held his boat there until 31 men had been rescued. These 47 men. were then taken to a destroyer. The third ship had only her bridge above water. He drove his boat over the ship’s bulwarks and held her against the bridge until all her surviving crew of 19 had gone aboard. From the fourth ship 22 men were rescued. The survivors from the other ships were saved by the whaler of a warship and a second lifeboat.