Feature The most lives saved A hundred years ago, a liner full of passengers needed saving off the Cornish coast – one lifeboat just wasn’t going to be enough After months at sea, the White Star liner Suevic was within hours of completing her voyage from Australia to Plymouth when she hit rocks off The Lizard, Cornwall. Thick fog had disorientated her crew. It was 10.30pm on 17 March 1907 and there was a gale blowing. Heavy seas were pounding the shore – and there were more than 400 people onboard.

It was fortunate for the Suevic’s passengers that the ship’s crew dealt with the situation calmly. One local newspaper later reported:‘Was there any suggestion of a panic? None whatever. I have never seen better behaviour in my life. One must remember the cigar of Captain Jones [of the Suevic]. He directed operations with a cigar in his mouth. It was an inspiration. If anything could stop a panic it would be a man who could keep the ash on the end of his cigar in a gale and an emergency.’ While distress flares were fired, two of the ship’s own lifeboats were lowered.

Eyewitnesses recalled how two of the Suevic’s seamen, named Anderson and Adams, worked especially hard to transfer women and children from the liner to one of the boats. But, unknown to the ship’s officers, dangerous rocks stood between the Suevic and the safety of the shore. Such small vessels faced a perilous journey.

As the Suevic’s boats struggled out from her shadow, RNLI lifeboats from The Lizard and Cadgwith came into sight, their crews battling with their oars against the swell. They part towed, part guided the two daughter boats ashore, and then returned to the stranded ship to transfer more passengers themselves.

Howard FG Rowley, the then RNLI Inspector, said: ‘Had the lifeboats not been at hand they [the passengers] would doubtless never have reached the shore. Such heroic acts deserve to be brought before the notice of all British people.’ Lifeboat crews from Coverack and Porthlevan now joined their comrades in bringing passengers from the wreck. One woman, who initially refused to let go of the ladder hanging at the side of the liner, was reportedly involved in a tug-of-war with the lifeboatman who had her by the ankles! The women of Cadgwith were more willing: gathering on the beach, they helped pull the lifeboats ashore, and one in particular was seen to rush in up to her waist to carry children to safety.

As the night wore on, the sea and wind grew more ferocious, but the lifeboat crews kept working. Households from around the area welcomed the traumatised passengers into their homes, although two rescuees quickly disappeared when they reached dry land – they turned out to have been stowaways.

By 12 noon on 18 March, all 456 of the Suevic’s passengers and crew had been brought to safety, including more than 70 babies. This feat was then, and still stands now, the biggest rescue of human life in one incident by the volunteer crews of the RNLI. In recognition of particular acts of bravery, four RNLI crew members later received Silver Medals for Gallantry. A message from the White Star Line, read at the presentation of the medals, said:‘We take this opportunity of stating that we appreciate most highly the very meritorious services rendered by the crews of the lifeboats on the occasion of the wreck of our steamer.’ After nine days languishing on the rocks, Suevic was dealt with in an unusual operation. She was blown in two by dynamite. The bow section, too damaged to salvage, was left to break up where the ship went aground, but the stern was towed to Southampton for repair. Meanwhile at the Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast, shipbuilders constructed a new bow.With her two sections now so far apart, Suevic became known as the longest ship in the world! Once rebuilt, she was renamed the Skytteren and became a Norwegian whaling factory ship.

Reporting on the whole remarkable incident, the Autumn 1907 Life-boat Journal remarked: ‘A disaster of such magnitude seldom occurs on the coast of the United Kingdom … Thanks to the prompt action of the Life-boats in the neighbourhood and the splendid discipline maintained on board it was happily unattended by loss of life.’ An understatement indeed.

(Readers in the south west of England might have seen a dramatised documentary of the Suevic rescue on local ITV in March; a real demonstration of Train one, save many!) .