THREE DROWNED IN BEACH TRAGEDY

Grey River Argus, 10 August 1948, Page 3

THREE DROWNED IN BEACH TRAGEDY

English Channel Gales Wreck Vessels, Crops And Roads LONDON, August 8. Gales of 70 miles an hour in the English Channel have put many vessels in difficulty and have stripped Kent orchards of fruit —a heartbreaking setback to farmers in many districts. A number of yachts around the south coast are missing from then moorings and many are in difficulties in the Channel. Lifeboats brought the crews off small craft in distress. Eight of the 13 aboard were drowned when a huge wave capsized, within sight ol harbour in Brittany, the trawler Petite Arnie, which was taking holiday makers cn a pleasure cruise to Perros. Shipping and aircraft are searching the Channel for five men in firebelts who were . reported missing after the crew of six had abandoned a Dutch yacht. A man from this yacht was picked up after he nab been in the water for six hours. Another yacht want ashore near Ventnor and became a total wreck The nine occupants were rescued ny breeches buoy. The Newhaven lifeboat answered distress signals from the 7177-ton United States ship, William Hawkins' as she lay off Beach Head. The lifeboat could not go alongside because of the heavy seas. A high sea piled shingle over the south coastal roads and left pleasure resorts devastated. Huge waveshowered spray 60 feet high over waterfront houses. Rivers have overflowed their banks and wrought havoc to grain crops.

Terrific Gale Causes Floods '(Rec. 7.45) LONDON, Aug. 9 Alter a gale had blown down notices warning bathers not to use a section of the beach off Sandown, Isle oi Wight, Dr Kenneth Mackie, saw his 12-year-old son being carried out tc sea. A woman bather brought the boy ashore, but Dr Mackie, in trying to' help his son was drowned. Twc swimmers who went to help Dr Mackie were also drowned, and seven others were given first-aid treatment alter unsucessful rescue attempts. The Guernsey lifeboat, in the early hours of to-day returned to Saint Peterport after its third fruitless search for five members of the crew oi a Dutch yacht. Pounding waves broke through the seawall at Clacton at high tide and swept the brushwood barriers into the front rooms of bungalows. One bungalow owner said: “I could hear the waves going clean over the roof, and when we got out of bed, the water was up to our knees.” Police in bathing costumes and helmets. assisted volunteers in rowing boats, rubber dinghies, and an army of amphibious jeeps in an eight-houi rescue task, which began before dawn yesterday, and last night. The area was still a lake with 20.000,000 gallons of_sea water.