COURAGE SHOWN BY COXSWAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24597, 20 November 1941, Page 5

COURAGE SHOWN BY COXSWAIN

AWARD OF BRITISH EMPIRE MEDAL

(8.0.W.) RUGBY, November 18. The rescue by the Cromer life-boat of 88 men from ships ashore on the sands has been recognized by the award of the British Empire Medal to Coxswain H. G. Blogg for courage and resolution. . A call for a life-boat was received to help six ships on the sands. Eighteen minutes later the boat was launched. It was blowing a gale with hard squalls, 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 surviving crew of 16 had been hauled aboard from the bridge. Next he went alongside a ship and held his boat there until 31 men had been rescued. These 46 men were then taken to a destroyer. The third ship had only the bridge above the 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 a fourth ship 22 men were rescued. The survivors from the other ships were saved by the whaler of a warship and a second life-boat.