SILVER MEDAL SERVICE AT WHITBY.

NOV. 12TH. - WHITBY, YORKSHIRE.

About three-thirty in the morning the coastguard telephoned to the Whitby life-boat station that a vessel was ashore close under the cliffs 200 yards on the south side of the East Pier. The night was dark and foggy. A light wind was blowing from the south-west but for some days there had been a wind from the east and it had left a heavy easterly swell.

It was nearly high water and the swell was breaking high against the cliffs.

Twenty minutes after the message had been received the No. 1 motor lift-boat Mary Ann Hepworth was launched. She reached the vessel in a quarter of an hour and found her to be the minesweeper Cape Comorin with a crew of eighteen.

The minesweeper was only 100 feet from the cliffs, bow on to them. She was in a corner made by the breakwater and the cliffs where the double backwash always causes a confused sea. She was on rocky bottom, and large rocks were close on either side of her. The seas were breaking right over her and she was rolling heavily.

BY THE LIGHT OF COASTGUARD'S SEARCHLIGHT It was a difficult place to get into even by daylight, and this night was not only very dark but foggy. Fortunately the minesweeper was close under the coastguard station and the district officer was able to keep his searchlight trained on her all the time. Without that help it is doubtful if a rescue would have been possible, for the seas were so big that the life-boat could not have used her own light.

On the rocky bottom it was impossible for the life-boat to anchor and drop down to the wreck on her cable.

The coxswain tried first to go in stern first, but the tide carried him past theminesweeper. He came out and went in bow first, right among the rocks, and got alongside. The minesweeper had depth charges ready for dropping at her stern and quarter and a boat just forward of them. so that the life- boat could not get alongside her stern, and had to go right abreast the wheelhouse.

Ropes were thrown, and eleven of the minesweeper’s men jumped aboard the life-boat. Then a very big sea struck her. It carried away the ropes ; knocked in the guard rails and stanchions on the port side ; carried away the wind-screen of the shelter ; bent the coxswain’s back screen four inches forward ; knocked the coxswain himself over the wheel, and knocked the wheel out of his hands, so that it spun round violently and bent the pintle ; filled to the roof the shelter where the mechanics were standing at the controls: lifted the life-boat towards the cliffs.

E I G H T E E N R E S C U E D The coxswain quickly got her under control again ; went astern; and brought her alongside for the second time. Four more men jumped aboard.

Again a heavy sea carried the life-boat towards the cliffs. Again the coxswain went astern, and came alongside for the third time. The last three men of the minesweeper then jumped.

All eighteen had been saved.

Very - cautiously the coxswain worked the life-boat, stern first, away from the wreck and came clear of the rocks, without touching anything.

The actual work of rescue had taken forty minutes.

The district officer of coastguard who had been holding the searchlight on the wreck all the time, saw the whole rescue - the seas breaking right over the minesweeper and the lifeboat herself smothered in the breaking water. He had thought that it would be impossible for her to go alongside the wreck.

The chief engineer of the minesweeper had stood at her stern holding a light to guide the life-boat. He was continually struck by the seas and wondered “ what it was like in the little boat below.” He could see thetwo mechanics at their engines under the canopy, up to their necks in water.

He watched in admiration the way in which the life-boat was handled, and he noticed that not a voice was heard except the coxswain’s, giving his orders.

REWARDS This was a very fine service in which the life-boat was most skilfully and courageously handled by the coxswain, James Murfield. The coxswain himself spoke very highly of the quickness with which the motor mechanic got the engines going full speed astern when the first big sea struck the boat and filled the shelter, and of the courage and resource of the acting second-coxswain, John Dryden, who had retired from the crew and had returned, at the age of sixty-one, to take the place of a man on war service.

He was in charge of the after lines, where there was no shelter, and, as the coxswain said, “ got all there was coming.” The Institution made the following awards : To COXSWAIN JAMES MURFIELD, the silver medal for gallantry and a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To ACTING SECOND,-COXSWAIN JOHN DRYDEN, the bronze medal and a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; 1 To J. PHIILPOT, the motor mechanic, the bronze medal and a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To each of the other five members of the crew, C. WALE, W. DRYDEN, R. WALKER, J. RICHARDSON and J.

HEBDEN, the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum ; To the coxswain and each of the seven members of the crew a reward of £2 in addition to the ordinary scale reward of £1 17s. 6d. each. Standard rewards to crew and launchers, £13 16s. 6d. ; additional rewards to crew, £16 ; total rewards, £29 16s. 6d.

The commander of the minesweeper made a donation to the funds of the Institution..