BRONZE MEDAL SERVICE AT BALLYCOTTON JANUARY 30TH. - BALLYCOTTON, CO. CORK. In the early morning of the 27th of January, 1941, many mines came ashore in Ballycotton Bay, on the south coast of Ireland, and four of them exploded, doing considerable damage to the village of Ballycotton.

All day long they were drifting in along the coast, and the Ballycotton coxswain and crew stood by. That day, however, they were not wanted.

Three days later, at noon on the 30th, mines were again reported to be in the bay, and most of the inhabitants of Ballycotton left the village and went inland. Just after three in the afternoon the honorary secretary of the life-boat station received a message from the look-out post on Flat Head, seventeen miles away, that a ship’s boat was two miles south of Flat Head and that its crew were trying to row off land.

The life-boat crew were attending an Air Raid Precautions meeting. They were summoned at once and taken to the life-boat house in motor cars. At 3.15 in the afternoon the motor lifeboat Mary Stanford was launched.

A strong wind was blowing from the south-south-east, with a heavy confused sea which was breaking three miles off the land. There was a thick fog, and the crew knew that mines were drifting in the bay. Fortunately, after a time, the fog lifted, but the sea got worse.

The life-boat passed the Daunt Rock Lightship, leaving it a mile on the port hand, and when she was two miles west by south of it, steering for Flat Head, the coxswain saw smoke to the southward. He thought it must be a mine exploding. If a mine had exploded, something had hit it. He altered course and made for the smoke.

He had been going a mile on the new course when he saw a boat on the top of a wave. The smoke had come from a flare which the men on board her had lighted, for they had seen the lifeboat before she saw them.

The boat belonged to the S.S. Primrose, of Liverpool. The steamer had turned turtle at 9.30 in the morning when she was about four miles eastsouth- east of Daunt Rock. The mate had been drowned in attempting to cut away a raft, but the other eight men of the crew had got away in the ship’s boat.

As the life-boat came near the boat the life-boatmen could see that she was waterlogged. Only six inches of her gunwale were above the water.

Three men at the oars were trying to keep her head to the seas and five others were lying exhausted across the thwarts. The life-boat’s coxswain told his crew to get grapnel irons and heaving lines ready. He intended to run up alongside and haul the men aboard.

When the life-boat was still fifty yards away, the three men at the oars turned their boat to row towards her, but at that moment a heavy sea broke over her and filled her. She sank, and the life-boat’s coxswain thought that all her men had gone, but her air cases brought her to the surface again, and he took the life-boat right alongside her. He had to handle the lifeboat very carefully, for if, in that sea, she had rolled over on the boat she would have sunk her at once. The grapnel irons were thrown ; the boat was hauled close to the life-boat ; and the eight men were dragged on board.

They were drenched, exhausted and suffering from cramp, but still alive.

It was then 5.15.

Brandy, biscuits and chocolate were given to them, and clothes which the life-boatmen took off themselves.

First aid was also given to two of the men, one with very severe cramp and the other with a cut hand. Then the life-boat made for Ballycotton. She arrived at 7.10 in the evening, and the rescued men were given into the care of the Red Cross and the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. The doctor who examined them said that, in another two hours, they would have been beyond his aid. Had the life-boat not found them, they would never have been able to reach the shore by themselves. They did not think that they could have reached it, exhausted as they were by their long struggle with the heavy seas, and with only three men able to row; and had they come near to it - a lee shore withthe tide setting into it - their boat would have been smashed to pieces in the breakers under the cliffs of Flat Head.

It was a skilful and gallant rescue, and the life-boat, in the heavy seas and fog, ran great danger of being blown up by a mine. The Institution made the following awards : To COXSWAIN PATRICK SLINEY, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum; To the coxswain and each member of the crew, a reward of £1 in addition to the ordinary scale reward of £2 7s.

each. Standard rewards to crew and helpers, £17 0S. 3d. ; additional rewards to crew, £8 ; total rewards, £25 0s. 3d..