Deep sea rescue tubs of WW1& 2

[John Arton]

Just finished reading Ian read's book "the Tattie lads", his history of the deep sea rescue guys in both those wars. The skill and bravery of all those MN guys who signed up to serve on them was incredible, especially as many of them had no towage and salvage experience prior to signing up to serve.
Amongst them was my father who on 9/10/1940 signed T114T articles in Glasgow, to serve as 1st mate on the DSRT "Salvonia". Prior to that he had served his time as cadet to 2nd mate in Blue Star line.
He, along with his newly married wife, my mother, were based in Campbeltown in Scotland. According to the book that base was only established in October of 1940, so he must have amongst the first to be stationed there. He served on a number of these rescue guys being promoted to master in 41 and leaving in 46 whereafter he joined Overseas Towage and Salvage and then Bland's of Gibraltar before going back to Blue Star Line in 53.
He died at sea when I was young so I never had the chance to talk to him about his war time service on the tube which must have included accompanying convoys across the north Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Indian ocean as he was awarded the stars for each of those campaigns as well as being involved in towing parts of PLUTO for supply of fuel to allied armies after the D day landings.
A very interesting and we'll written and researched book it helped me to partly visualise the work he carried out often in extreme weather conditions and under constant threat of enemy attack.
Rgds
J.A.

[happy daze john in oz]

Those men, like so many others did the work that most never even thought about.
But without their efforts things may have been very different.
They remain like many others amongst the unsung heros.