SILVER MEDAL SERVICE AT DOVER Nov. 26TH. - DOVER, KENT.

During the morning H.M. Trawler Blackburn Rovers, with 16 men on board, was on anti-submarine patrol off Dover near the minefields. A full gale was blowing from the south-west, with a very heavy sea, and merchant vessels leaving the Downs had hove to.

When the trawler was a mile southeast of the South Goodwin Sands a wire fouled her propeller and could not be freed. She dropped anchor, but the anchor would not hold, and she began to drift rapidly towards the mine-fields.

The Dover motor life-boat Sir William Hillary put out to her help at 10 o’clock. She had on board Lieutenant Richard Walker, R.N.R., Assistant King’s Harbour Master, with a chart of the minefields. She reached the trawler an hour and a quarter later. The trawler was then just on the edge of a deep minefield.

Through this she could pass without touching the mines herself, but there was the grave risk that her anchor cable would foul and explode one of them, and if she drifted through this minefield safely she would enter a shallow minefield where she would be in extreme danger.

The life-boat went close to the trawler and the harbour master told the trawler’s crew to collect all secret papers and as much of her secret gear as they could move and to pass them into the life-boat. Then, before they left the trawler, they were to scuttle her lest any of the secret gear left on board should fall into enemy hands.

By this time the trawler was right in the minefield and her crew had given up all hope of coming out of it alive.

She was plunging and rolling in the very heavy seas and they were breaking right over her. As heranchor was down she was drifting stern first before the gale and so she gave the life-boat no lee where she could come alongside in shelter. In spite of this the coxswain, with great difficulty, brought the life-boat alongside, and held her there. Then the work of transferring the gear began. It took some time. Once the trawler, swinging up on a sea, caught the life-boat under her fender and damaged it.

and the life-boat herself was tossing so violently that the two mechanics could hardly keep their feet. They were continually flung away from the controls of the engine.

The coxswain had seen the harbour master’s chart. He knew, his crew knew, that all this time the trawler was rapidly driving through the deep minefield towards the shallow one.

They were in instant peril. At any moment the trawler might. strike a mine, and she and the life-boat go up together. But the work went on.

The gear was transferred. The sixteen men of the trawler’s crew were rescued. Trawler and life-boat had been in the minefield for nearly an hour, but, by merciful providence.

escaped the mines.

Then the homeward journey began.

with the rescued crew in the forward cabin. With the gale behind her the life-boat had taken an hour and a quarter to get to the trawler. Now she had the gale against her. Her full speed is 17 knots. She had to ease to six knots, and it took her three hours, with seas continually breaking over her, to reach Dover. The coxswain had not long recovered from a dangerous illness, and during the return journey he had to hand over the wheel to the second coxswain. The lifeboat arrived at Dover at 3.30 in the afternoon.

It was a very gallant service carried out in face of imminent peril, of which all were aware, but against which nothing could be done. The Institution made the following awards : To COXSWAIN C. H. BRYANT, the silver medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To LIEUTENANT RICHARD WALKER, R.N.R., Assistant King’s Harbour Master at Dover, the bronze medal forgallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To SECOND-COXSWAIN S. T. HILLS and W. L. COOK and C. R. T. STOCK, the motor mechanics, bronze medals for gallantry, with copies of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To each of the other five members of the crew, A. F. BARTON, S. WALKER, E. J. LE GROS, H. W. HADLEY and J. E. CLARK, the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum ; who were not permanent whole-time paid men. Standard rewards, £5 14s. ; additional rewards, £27 ; total re- To the coxswain and each of the eight men of the crew, a reward of £3, in addition to the ordinary scale reward of 19s. each to the six men wards, £32 14s..