The Mumbles Lifeboat 
'A Constant Devotion: 1939-45'

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8 May 2020: VE Day Commemoration

    When we commemorate the end of the Second World War in Europe we also remember the courageous service given throughout the war by the crews of all our lifeboats. 

The Mumbles lifeboat crew between 1939 and 1945 put to sea in the Blackout, negotiating mine fields (both enemy and allied) and coastal defences to rescue shell-shocked and often badly injured seamen from ships blown apart by mines. They launched to ships in distress in dreadful weather, risking attack from the enemy beneath the waves and in the skies above. It doesn’t take much imagination to think what it must have been like to launch off the pier in total darkness, your only light being that of the boat’s compass. Navigation lights were kept to a minimum, and as there were a large number of large ships coming in and out of Swansea Bay and up and down the Bristol Channel, the small lifeboat was often at risk of being accidentally run down. 

The Admiralty controlled the coast and no vessel, including the lifeboat, could put to sea without permission from the commanding officer at Swansea Naval Base, who also instructed the coxswain what to do and what not to do when the lifeboat did launch. In the event of an invasion the coxswain had orders to destroy the lifeboat’s engine and had been issued with firearms and ammunition should he meet the enemy at sea. 

Minesweepers from the naval base worked hard to clear the important shipping lane, but many vessels were mined and The Mumbles lifeboat crew were very busy throughout 1940 and early 1941. In January 1940, after the Blue Funnel Line vessel Protesilaus was mined off Rotherslade Bay, 22 injured merchant seamen were picked up in arctic conditions. The weather was so bad that heavy frost prevented the rehousing of the lifeboat for several days. On 7 February 1940, Coxswain William Edwin Davies, and his crew performed an amazing rescue in raging seas of 37 men from the stricken Eldon Park, holed off Port Eynon. For this rescue the RNLI awarded the coxswain its Thanks on Vellum. In February 1941, to a backdrop of flames engulfing Swansea during the Three Nights’ Blitz the struggle to save lives at sea continued with the lifeboat launching to mined vessels.

The particularly daring rescue during the Blackout of 10 men from the Cornish Rose, trapped in the invisible coastal sea defences at Southend in rough seas, earned Coxswain William Gammon and Mechanic Robert Williams RNLI Bronze Medals. But it was the ‘miraculous and magnificent’ rescue of 42 officers and men on board the badly damaged HMCS Chebogue that had run aground on Port Talbot bar during a gale in October 1944 that was regarded as one of the most courageous. For his conspicuous gallantry Coxswain William Gammon was awarded the RNLI’s highest honour, a Gold Medal, along with the Maud Smith Award for the bravest rescue of the year. Bowman Tom Ace and Mechanic William Gilbert Davies received Bronze Medals. The rest of the crew – lifeboat veterans (two in their 70s) as the younger men had been called up – were accorded the Thanks of the Institution Inscribed on Vellum. 

It is no wonder that the UK government’s official history of the Second World War at sea described the wartime lifeboat service as one of ‘constant devotion [that] saved hundreds of lives and did much to minimise the risks seamen accepted throughout the war’. 

© Kate Jones

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