BOY SCOUT HERO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 226, 16 October 1940, Page 7

BOY SCOUT HERO

IN ACTION OFF NORWAY SAVED SHIP'S COMPLEMENT! A Glasgow Rover Scout "serving in the Royal Navy walked into his Rover den the other night and received a rousing welcome. He was home on "survivor's leave" from a trawler reported sunk off the Norwegian coast. He told a graphic but modest story to his Rover Commissioner. "Our ship was lying in a fiord one morning," he said, "when we were attacked by a Nazi bomber. I ran to my gun and managed to get off a few shots before a bomb burst nearby and blew me 15ft across the deck. It only hurt my dignity, so I went back to the gun. After dropping another bomb which wrecked the bridge and killed everybody there, the bomber went away. "I went to lend a hand with the wounded. There was only one stretcher aboard, so I made others as I had been taught in. the Scouts. "It was decided to abandon ship, so I got into a float which was towed down the fiord by a lifeboat. We landed down the fiord and spent the day on the hillside, being machincgunned occasionally. "At dusk, a cruiser came into the fiord. The ship's signaller was not in the party, and remembering my Morse, I signalled with a pocket torch. The cruiser was suspicious at first, wanting to know the name of" the ship arid what had happened. I signalled back slowly and eventually the cruiser sent a whaleboat ashore. As we were being taken oft, one of the other fellows turned to me and said: " 'Well, thank God for the Boy Scouts!'"