LIFEBOAT MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

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The S.S. Trsat

SEPTEMBER 7TH. - FRASERBURGH, ABERDEENSHIRE. At 8.57 P.M. the Kinnaird Head coastguard reported that a vessel was being attacked by aeroplanes several miles to the N.E. of the head. She was the S.S. Trsat, of Cardiff (late of Jugoslavia), and was bound, laden with fish, from Iceland to Hull. Later the coastguard reported red flares, and at 10.7 P.M. the motor life-boat John and Charles Kennedy was launched. A light N.E. wind was blowing, with a moderate swell. The life-boat stopped a patrol trawler, told her of the distress signals and then went on. She found first an empty boat, then wreckage, and then a water-logged boat with thirteen men and a dead body on board, and another man clinging to the boat. They were all taken into the life-boat and told the coxswain that there were still two men missing. The steamer had sunk. The life-boat handed over the boat and the dead body to a patrol boat, and continued to search among the wreckage, but there was no trace of the two men. Leaving the patrol boat to carry on the search the life-boat returned to her station at 1.15 next morning with the fourteen rescued men. - Rewards, £10 8s.