PERSISTENT SAILOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26034, 24 December 1945, Page 7

PERSISTENT SAILOR

ATTEMPTS TO REACH WIFE SWAM ASHORE FROM SHIP (Rec. 10.50 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 23. Herbert Lamoureux. an American sailor, who jumped overboard from a ship in Plymouth Sound yesterday in an endeavour to swim five miles to the shore to see his English wife and child, nearly perished in the icy water and ended up by being promptly placed on another ship returning to America without seeing them. Lamoureux, formerly a sergeant in the American forces, married an English girl during the war. He was returned home for demobilisation, and his wife was unable to secure a passage to join him. Lamoureux applied for a visa to return to England, but was refused. He then signed on a liner as a messmsn, hoping the vessel would dock at Liverpool, where his wife and baby are living, but it went to Plymouth, where he unsuccessfully tried 1o go ashore posing as a disembarking passenger. Soon' afterwards the liner left for Le Havre, and Lamoureux dived overboard and struggled, fully dressed, in icy water to swim five miles to the shore. Almost exhausted, he managed,, to clamber on the rocks near the lighthouse, where his cries fpr help brought rescuers. The immigration officials in Plymouth weresympathetic, but adamant that he could not remain in England without a visa. The police 10 hours later deposited the vehemently protesting Lamoureux aboard another liner returning to America.