Friday 27 October 1916 started with a rescue and ended in tragedy – one of the worst in RNLI history. It is a story of courage,
sacrifice and loss. 100 years on, a lifeboat town remembers the crew who never came home

A war is raging on one side of the English Channel while, on the other, gale force winds are battering the Devon coast, putting lives at risk. At the lookout station at Prawle Point – the county’s most southerly point – extra volunteers have been drafted in. At around 5am, their worst fears are realised: a topsail schooner Western Lass runs aground near rocks at Langerstone Point, half a mile east of Prawle Point. Chief Officer May – responding to a distress signal from the ship’s crew – phones the Senior Coastguard in Salcombe to request help, then mobilises a shore rescue team. Western Lass is fortunate to be driven onto a sandy cove, narrowly missing rocks that could tear her  apart. In the teeth of a force 9 severe gale, volunteers from the East Prawle Lifesaving Apparatus Company evacuate the ship’s crew to safety using rescue lines fired from a rocket on the shore. The launch Because of a fault on the phone line there was a delay before the call from Chief Officer May reached the Coastguard in Salcombe. It meant the lifeboat – the pulling and sailing William and Emma – launched just minutes before the last man on Western Lass was hauled ashore. To reach the open sea the lifeboat crew, clad in their oilskins and lifejackets, had first to row across Salcombe Bar – a hazardous sand spit guarding the mouth of Kingsbridge Estuary. Conditions on the Bar that day were worse than anyone could remember. A force 9 south-westerly severe gale whipped the shallow water into a frenzy of breaking waves. The greatest danger for the crew was a mistimed stroke, which could easily have turned them broadside into the waves, resulting in a capsize. But the crew were confident in their ability and their craft. Summoning every ounce of strength, they pulled the 6¼-ton William and Emma straight out over the surf into deeper, calmer water beyond. The elements were now in the crew’s favour. With the wind filling their sails, they powered along the rocky coastline towards Langerstone Point. Although Chief Officer May could see the lifeboat approaching, with darkness lifting, he had no way of signalling to the crew to turn back. Strike for home As Coxswain Sam Distin steered a wide course around Prawle Point to stay clear of the treacherous surf, he got his first glimpse of Western Lass. Realising the schooner’s crew had already been rescued, he stood the lifeboat down. ‘ They made the ultimate sacrifice. We need to make sure what happened isn’t forgotten.’

Lifeboat Crew Member James (‘Coops’) Cooper, great grandson of Eddie Distin (inset), one of two survivors of the lifeboat William and Emma The next few minutes would decide the lifeboat’s fate. Aware of the risks of crossing back over Salcombe Bar, the crew considered the safer option of sailing on to Dartmouth, 13 miles to the east. A short hop for today’s all-weather lifeboat, in 1916 it would have taken much longer – an enormous physical challenge for already tired limbs. There was also the cost of the overland journey back to Salcombe to consider; many of the crew were poorly paid fishermen. Confident in their lifeboat, and anxious to get home to their loved ones, they vowed to return via the Bar. To retrace their path, the crew now had to sail into the teeth of the wind. It took a supreme physical effort, sapping much of their energy. Ahead of them, they could see, and hear, the thunderous roar of the breakers over Salcombe Bar drawing ominously near. The water over the Bar was unusually shallow. This fact and the weather, combined to devastating effect, sending huge breakers crashing down. Holding out for conditions to abate, the coxswain twice gave the order to turn about and head back out to sea. It took a heavy toll on the crew, who were by
now drenched, cold and exhausted. If they were to reach the sanctuary of South Sands on the other side of the Bar – tantalisingly near, yet agonisingly far – it was a case of crossing now or never. The capsize No amount of experience could have prepared the crew for what happened next. Approaching the Bar via the western channel, they lowered the sails, deployed the drogue to keep the boat pointing straight ahead, and made ready to take down the masts. Before they could take up the oars, a mountainous wave rose up and exploded over the lifeboat’s port side. It delivered a fatal blow. Pitchpoled, stern over bow, the lifeboat rolled to starboard, catapulting the 15 crew into the raging sea. From the shore, friends and families looked on in horror. The crew’s oars, suddenly useless, scattered like matchsticks. In the chaos, hands reached out and grabbed the hand battens and lifelines on the upturned hull. 

SALCOMBE BAR

Straddling the entrance to Kingsbridge Estuary, the sand spit known locally as Salcombe Bar presents a hazard to vessels
of all kinds under particular combinations of tide, wind direction and atmospheric pressure. The conditions that confronted William and Emma in 1916 would have been a severe test for today’s advanced all-weather lifeboats. As Salcombe’s Coxswain Chris Winzar admits: ‘It would have been too dangerous for our all-weather lifeboat to return over the Bar that day.’

Friday 27 October 1916
5.12am: Chief Officer May sees a blue light – a known signal of distress – over Langerstone Point
5.50am: Coastguard
in Salcombe receives distress call
6.50am: Crew launch William and Emma from the lifeboat station at South Sands
6.52am: Last crew member pulled to safety from the schooner Western Lass
8.00am: Crew reach Langerstone Point and turn the lifeboat around
8.25am: Lifeboat passes Prawle Point on her way home
10.40am: Lifeboat capsizes off the Bar
11.03am: The time at which survivor Eddie Distin’s watch stopped Monday 23 April 1917: A new lifeboat enters service at Salcombe

Those who could, hung on. The next wave to hit spilled them into the sea once more. Back they went again. But as the breakers kept coming, the men’s resolve, and their grip, was finally broken. Thirteen crew members lost their lives that day. Miraculously, two survived: Eddie Distin and Bill Johnson were discovered clinging to a rocky outcrop, metres from the shore. A rescue party, using throw lines, scrambled down to the shore and pulled the men – dazed, dashed and bruised – to safety. Find out more The full story is told in The Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster written by Roger Barrett. We are grateful to the author for allowing us to reuse some of the content here. You can buy the book by emailing [email protected] or online from RNLI.org/amazon (add £2.80 for p&p), priced £7.99. There is a wealth of additional information on the lifeboat station's website, salcombe lifeboat.co.uk, which includes a link to the film that accompanies the book, and details of the commemorative events happening this year. There are further displays in the station’s Lifeboat Museum and Salcombe Maritime Museum.
Words: Rob Westcott
Photos: RNLI/Nathan Williams 

A COMMUNITY IN MOURNING

There was barely anyone in Salcombe whose life was not touched by what happened. With younger crew members away fighting in the trenches, the average age of William and Emma’s crew had risen to 40. Many of them had families and several were related, including three members of the Foale family. As lives and livelihoods were destroyed, their families fell on hard times. Nine of those who died were fishermen. Their loss tore through the local fishing industry, already depleted by the First World War. The RNLI set up a Relief Fund to support the 8 widows and 20 children left behind. The community rallied, and it took just a few weeks to recruit a replacement lifeboat crew. In less than 6 months a new lifeboat went into service. Eddie Distin was persuaded to rejoin the crew, serving as coxswain until he retired in 1951. The tragedy may have passed from living memory, but there is a quiet determination among lifeboat families in Salcombe to remember the sacrifices of the past, and keep the story alive for future generations.