APRIL 28TH. - BOULMER, AND AMBLE, NORTHUMBERLAND. On the night of Sunday, 27th April, it was learned at Boulmer that a German aeroplane had attacked a naval vessel and that the aeroplane had been brought down in flames. The coxswain and second-coxswain stood by, and twenty minutes later, at 11 P.M., the coastguard at Blyth and Boulmer reported distress signals some eight miles N.E. of Seaton Point. It was decided to launch the motor life-boat Clarissa Langdon to search, and the honorary secretary rang up the military authority to get an armed guard. The life-boat had to be taken by her tractor through a narrow gap in the coastal defences of concrete and barbed wire. The night was dark and no lights could be used. The driver of the tractor was guided to the gap and through it by the glow of cigarettes. The life-boat was taken down to low water mark, and as soon as the military guard arrived she was launched off her carriage. It was then just after midnight..

When the life-boat had set out, the honorary secretary of the station feared that a ship had been sunk or damaged, as well as an aeroplane brought down, so he telephoned the commandant of the Red Cross at Alnwick at one in the morning, asking him to be on the alert, and two hours later two ambulances arrived at Boulmer with their staffs of men and women nurses. They were accommodated in the boat-house. In fact, it, was learned later that the aeroplane had attacked H.M.S.. Patia, a naval auxiliary vessel of 5,500 tons, and had hit her with an aerial torpedo. The Patia had replied and shot the aeroplane down, but she herself had sunk.

The coxswain steered for the spot given, eight miles N.E. of Seaton Point, and on his way found himself among great quantities of floating wreckage, such as oil drums, bags and wood. In the dark they were difficult to identify, and great care had to be taken, as the life-boat was now in an area which hadAs from the wreckage it appeared that a ship had been sunk as well as an aeroplane lost, the coxswain continued his search among the wreckage, saw and examined several rafts, and found a naval whaler bottom up, but there was no sign of any men.

At daybreak the coastguard reported to the station a raft off Cullernose Point, with three men on it, and after arranging for this news to be signalled to the life-boat, the honorary secretary, Mr. William S. Stanton, put out with three other men in the motor fishing boat Primrose to find the raft. The coastguard also sent the news to Amble, and the motor life-boat Frederick and Emma was launched at 5.15. Just as the Primrose was leaving, the news came that this raft had landed at Howick Burn, that another had landed in Embleton Bay, and that a third raft, crowded with men, was three miles east of Boulmer station. The Primrose met the Amble life-boat, and Mr. Stanton went aboard the life-boat, which then went to meet the third raft and found that it was the Boulmer life-boat. The two life-boats made for a patrol vessel, two miles to the east, and on their way passed a motor fishing boat, which had a raft alongside.

There was one man in the raft, lying in the bottom, under water. He was dead, and the Boulmer life-boat took his body on board.

When the two life-boats came up with the Patrol vessel, the Lord Darling, they learnt what they had suspected must have happened, that not only had the aeroplane been shot down, but that the vessel which had shot her down, an armed merchant cruiser, had been sunk. Two patrol vessels had gone to the Tyne with survivors, but the skipper of the Lord Darling thought that all the crew had not been accounted for. The two life-boats continued their search over a wide area looking for survivors on rafts or wreckage.

Above them an R.A.F. aeroplane was circling.

The Boulmer life-boat found four bodies and took them on board, among them the captain of the armed cruiser, and the Amble life-boat found ten. But they found no men alive.

They continued their search until eight in the morning and then returned to their stations, Boulmer arriving at 9.15 and been closed because of mines, and the day before, when the life-boat was out on exercise, the naval authorities would not allow her to go more than half a mile from the shore.

The life-boat then hailed a patrol vessel.

The patrol vessel replied with the challenge signal, for the life-boat, by arrangement with the naval authorities, was under full navigation lights. The coxswain told the vessel who he was and asked for information, but the patrol vessel had nothing to tell him, and the life-boat continued her search among the wreckage. There she found at last the rubber raft, belonging to the enemy aeroplane which had been shot down. In it she found a wristlet watch, stopped at 11.5, and an airman’s helmet, but there was no trace of the airman. The life-boat took the raft on board.

Amble at 9.45.

Meanwhile the other two rafts, which had been reported, had proved to be ship’s boats.The one which had come ashore at Howick Burn, a mile north of Boulmer, had 41 men onboard. The Red Cross ambulance workers had met them and taken charge of the injured. The uninjured were looked after by the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, and the villagers gave them dry clothing and food, and put to bed those who were exhausted.

The other boat, which had come ashore in Embleton Bay, had about 40 men on board. Both boats had reached the land about one in the morning, but had waited for daybreak to come ashore. - Rewards : Boulmer, £19 7s. ; Amble, £7 12s.

(See Boulmer, “ Services by Shore-boats,” page 96.).