YOUTH’S BRAVERY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20678, 31 January 1942, Page 6

YOUTH’S BRAVERY

RAGING SEAS DEFIED ATTEMPTED RESCUE GEORGE MEDAL AWARD (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Rritisli Official Wireless.) Reed. 2 p.m. RUGBY, Jan. 30. Hew a seafaring nation answers the call of “those in peril on the sea” is strikingly illustrated in the announcement of the George Medal award to two youths who attempted to rescue n Polish airman after his plane crashed in the sea off the Welsh coast.

In a raging sea, D. Baynham and J. Woods, both aged 17 years, launched a small dinghy in their rescue mission. After 45 minutes they came close to the aircraft, but a big wave caught them broadside on and they were swamped. They then swam to the wreckage, where they found a Polish airman, the solitary survivor of the air crew, exhausted. They managed to get him to the boat, which was upturned and drifting to shore, and with great difficulty they clung to it as it reared and plunged in the waves.

Eventually they got the airman to a beach defence post projecting above the water. Unfortunately he was too weak to hold on. and was drowned. Baynham and Wood, now utterly exhausted, were washed in towards the shore, where they were pulled out. They had been in the water for two hours.

This is not the end of the story. Other attempts meanwhile had been made, in the course ol' which 11 people lost their lives. Two boat-loads ol would-be rescuers had already overturned when a coastguard officer, Evan Jones, and an airman insisted on putting to sea in a small boat to try and save some of the rescuers from drowning. Before they got far out. the boat capsized and Jones, who could not swim, was drowned. A whaler, manned by a volunteer crew 1 , set out to the rescue. When, on reaching the open sea, an attempt was made to turn the' boat to the lee of the aircraft, a wave caught her broadside on and she capsized. A coastguard officer and a merchant service officer and four soldiers were drowned. Five others were drowned while also making attempts to rescue the airmen in the raging sea.