RYE LIFEBOAT LOST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 513, 16 November 1928, Page 9

RYE LIFEBOAT LOST

Bodies Thrown Up By Waves at Feet of Wives and Mothers

TRAGIC TALE OF HEROISM FROM Rye, one of the Cinque ports, comes a story of heroism and tragedy. The lifeboat put out in wild seas to help a distressed Latvian ship. The Latvians were rescued by a German vessel; but the lifeboat, returning, was lost in the angry sea, and her 16 men were drowned. Their bodies were washed ashore, to the feet of agonised wives and mothers.

Reca. 10.10 a.m. LONDON, Thursday. A lifeboat at Rye, Sussex, was swamped while returning from an attempt to succour a Latvian steamer. Sixteen of the crew were drowned, including Coxswain Head, his two sons, four of a family name Deutting, and four of a family named Pope. There was a very violent gale in the Channel. The steamer Alice, laden with bricks, sent out a distress signal. The lifeboat put out at 5 a.m., though the seas were the heaviest known for 30 years. Another vessel rescued the Alice's crew, leaving the steamer to founder at Dengemarsh; but the lifeboat, returning, overturned on nearing Rye harbour, where the crew constituted practically the entire male fishing population. There were very distressing scenes as the bodies were quickly washed to the feet of mothers and wives, who

were stupefied with grief when they saw the boat disappear in the terrific seas, which made it impossible for other boats to be launched. A British Official Wireless message says a tragic aspect of loss of the lifeboat at Rye is that five minutes after it had put to sea a message was received that the crew of the Alice had been taken aboard the German steamer Smyrna, and that no assist ance was required. Watchers on the cliffs, who saw the lifeboat capsize, raced to the little village. Doctors, nurses and first-aid men raced to the gap in the cliffs leading to the shore. A human chain was formed, and up to their necks in broiling surf the volunteers fought to rescue the floating dead bodies from their Channel grave. Later, the lifeboat itself was hurled ashore by the waves, with two of the dead crew beneath it. Ten bodies have so far been recovered.