RNLB Lord Southborough (Civil Service No. 1) (ON 688)

Royal National Life Boat Lord Southborough (Civil Service No. 1) (ON 688), was a Watson Class motor lifeboat of the Royal National Life Boat Institution's fleet, which was stationed at Margate in the English county of Kent in the United Kingdom from 1925 to 1951.[1] From 1951 she served in the R.N.L.I.’s Relief Fleet.[2][3]

Lord Southborough (ON 832)
History
Owner: Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
Builder: S.E. Saunders, Cowes, Isle of Wight
Official Number:ON 688
Donor:
StationMargate Lifeboat Station, Relief Fleet 1951 - 1955
Cost: £8,997
Laid down: 1924
Sponsored by: Civil Service, Post Office and British Telecom Lifeboat Fund
Acquired: 1925
Fate: Unknown
General characteristics
Class and type: Watson (Motor) Class
Length: 45 ft 0 in (13.72 m) overall
Beam: 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Installed power: One 80hp Weyburn DE6 petrol engine

Funding and naming

The lifeboat Lord Southborough was financed by the organization and charity known as the Civil Service, Post Office and British Telecom Lifeboat Fund or CISPOTEL, which funded many lifeboats. It was named after the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer Francis Hopwood, Lord Southborough, who was Honorary Treasurer of CISPOTEL for 33 years.[2]

Description

Lord Southborough was made in 1924 in the boatyards of S.E. Saunders, in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. She was a Watson Class Motor Lifeboat and was 45 ft 0 in (13.72 m) with a beam of 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m), powered by a single 80 horsepower Weyburn DE6 petrol engine.

Service history

At 5:50am on the morning of 29 December 1929, Lord Southborough was launched from her station in a South-Westerly gale in very heavy seas following reports of ship distress flares having been sighted close to Margate. The source of the flares was a German motorvessel called the Hermine of Wilhelmshaven, which had run aground in the storm. Lord Southborough's crew boarded the vessel to assist its crew, but were unable to re-float her. The German crew were subsequently evacuated and taken to shore aboard a pilot boat. Lord Southborough's crew were subsequently awarded certificates of thanks by the German Government for their role in the rescue.[4]

World War 2

With the outbreak of war in 1939 Lord Southborough was prepared for a busy time given her station on the coast facing the continent of Europe.

Dunkirk evacuation

At 5:30pm on 30 May 1940 a telephone request was made by the naval officer in charge at Margate that Lord Southborough be launched to go across the English Channel to Dunkirk to help with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force.[5] Under the command of Coxswain Edward Parker the lifeboat headed off to Dunkirk, along with 18 other lifeboats which had been commandeered by the same orders. The Margate crew was one of only three[6] RNLI lifeboat crews used in the evacuation that were allowed to take their own lifeboat across the English Channel, the others were crewed by Royal Navy personnel. Lord Southborough was second to arrive at the Dunkirk beaches, with the Ramsgate lifeboat Prudential (ON 697)[7] arriving a little before. The two lifeboats spent their first hours on the beaches ferrying soldiers from the beach to larger ships waiting off-shore in deeper water to evacuate them back to England.[6] Lord Southborough is officially credited with having brought off 600[8] military personnel from Dunkirk's beach, but the true figure is thought to be far greater than this. 500 of these were conveyed from the beach at La Panne to the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Icarus. The Commanding Officer of the destroyer, Lieutenant Commander E. G. Roper,[9] said of Lord Southborough’s crew

On behalf of every officer and man on this ship, I should like to express to you our unbound admiration for the magnificent behaviour of the crew of the lifeboat Lord Southborough…. The manner in which, with no thought of rest, they brought off load after load of soldiers under continuous shelling, bombing and aerial machine-gun fire will be an inspiration to us all as long as we live. We are proud to be the fellow countrymen of such men.[10]

The lifeboat's Coxswain Edward Parker was one of the two lifeboat coxswains in the operation awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the other being Harold Knight, Coxswain of the Ramsgate Lifeboat ON 697.[11]

Lord Southbourough Lifeboat Crew at Dunkirk[9]
RNLB Lord Southbourgh (ON 832)
Name Rank
Edward (Ted) Parker DSMCoxswain
T. HarmanSecond Coxswain
E. JordenEngineer
W MackieSecond Engineer
H. ParkerBowman
D. PriceSignaller
J LetleyCrewman
A. MorrisCrewman
A. LaddCrewman
T. ParkerExtra Crewman
W. HopperExtra Crewman

The Battle of Britain

From August 1940 the Battle of Britain raged in the skies above the south coast of England,[12] and the R.N.L.I.'s lifeboats were used to rescue airmen that had come down in the English Channel and the North Sea. One of the busiest lifeboat crews during the battle was that of Lord Southborough. On 3 September 1940[12] Lord Southborough was sent out to search for a missing Spitfire pilot who had been shot down in an air-to-air engagement with a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt 109.[12] The fighter-pilot was Richard Hillary (a descendant of Sir William Hillary,[12] the founder of the R.N.L.I. in 1824) who had sustained extensive burns to his face and hands. He was rescued and taken ashore in considerable pain. The lifeboat crew later visited him in hospital during his recovery.[12]

The Guardsman

At 1:40pm on 15 November 1940 the sirens were sounded in Margate to alert the town of an air-raid, and the crew of Lord Southborough were mustered in the Margate boathouse. From there they saw the Royal Navy Tug HMS Guardsman explode after she struck a mine off North Foreland headland.[13] Lord Southborough immediately launched to go to the aid of the tug; by the time it arrived at the scene H.M.S. Guardsman had sunk,[14] but the lifeboat was able to rescue seven of the Royal Navy personnel (from a crew of ten) whom they found clinging to pieces of the wreckage. On return the lifeboat's Coxwain reported that he could find no trace of the missing two Royal Navy crewmen, and it was presumed that they had gone down with the vessel.

April 1941

At 5:45pm in the early evening of 10 April 1941[2] Lord Southborough was launched to search for a crashed Royal Air Force Blenheim bomber, which had been reported as having made a forced landing on Margate Sands 3 miles off shore after returning from an attack on Borkum, during which it had been damaged by anti-aircraft defensive fire. Lord Southborough located and rescued the three man R.A.F. aircrew using a small dinghy as the lifeboat could only get to within a quarter of a mile of the aircraft's crash site.[2]

April 1944

On the evening of 27 April 1944[15] a Liberator Bomber of the United States Army Air Force crashed at Foreness Point.[16] The aircraft from the 446th Bomb Group, flying out of RAF Bungay in Norfolk, had been on a bombing raid over the railway-marshalling yards at Blainville-sur-l'Eau in north-eastern France, and was returning to its base when it came down, the crash killing 8 of 10 crew aboard, with two having parachuted out of the aircraft shortly beforehand. Locating the two survivors after a search, Lord Southborough rescued them and brought them back to shore.

Service career

Lord Southborough was in service for the R.N.L.I. for a total of 30 years.[2] 25 of those years were spent at Margate where she performed 278 service launches. She was credited with saving 269 lives.[2] For the last 5 years of her R.N.L.I. career she was placed in its Relief Fleet, with which she went on to perform another 14 service launches, and she saved a further 17 lives.[2]

Retirement and disposal

Lord Southborough was sold out of the service by the R.N.L.I. in 1955. She was bought by the Crown Agents for further use as a lifeboat in the British Overseas Territories.[5] She is thought to have been afterwards sent to Benghazi, Libya,[5] her fate beyond this is unsure.

References
  1. OS Explorer Map 150 – Canterbury & the Isle of Thanet. Published: Ordnance Survey – Southampton. ISBN 978 0 319 2351 88.
  2. 125 Years of CISPOTEL – Supporters of the RNLI. A History of the Fund and its Lifeboats. Authors:Leslie G. Fawkes, Tony Barker and Jeff Morris. Edited:Peter Sims. First Published: 1991 Copyright: © 1991. CISPOTEL Lifeboat Fund. ASIN B007722XN6
  3. Fawkes, Leslie G; Barker, Tony; Morris, Jeff. Peter Sims (ed.). 125 Years of CISPOTEL support for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution - A History of the Fund and its Lifeboats (PDF). p. 21. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
  4. "Her Majesty The Queen to visit Margate RNLI". Reference to award by the german Government. Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
  5. "The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships". Lord Southborough Lifeboat. Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  6. Heroes All! – The story of the RNLI. Authur: Beilby, Alec. Publisher: Patrick Stephens Ltd – Haynes Publishing Group 1992. Reference to Dunkirk page 52. ISBN 1 85260 419 0
  7. "The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships". The Lifeboat Prudential (ON 697). Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  8. Heroes All! – The story of the RNLI. Authur: Beilby, Alec. Publisher: Patrick Stephens Ltd – Haynes Publishing Group 1992. The Kent Stations- Reference to Dunkirk page 162. ISBN 1 85260 419 0
  9. The Margate R.N.L.I. Station – And its Lifeboats from 1860. Author: Walters. AP. Publisher:Axxent Ltd.ISBN 0 9531620 0 1
  10. "Margate Cemetery - Est. 1856 - The Friends of Margate Cemetery". Edward Duke Parker :- Grave number 4292, Section VII. Produced by The Friends of Margate Cemetery. Archived from the original on 2 August 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  11. "No. 34953". The London Gazette (Supplement). 24 September 1940. p. 5711. Margate Coxswain shown as Edward Drake Palmer.
  12. Heroes All! – The story of the RNLI. Authur: Beilby, Alec. Publisher: Patrick Stephens Ltd – Haynes Publishing Group 1992. The Kent Stations- Battle of Britain - Richard Hillary, page 163. ISBN 1 85260 419 0
  13. "Allied Warships – HMS Guardsman". Reference and details of the sinking of HMS Guardsman. U-boat.net - © 1995 - 2013 Guðmundur Helgason. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  14. "Guardsman HMS (1919 – 1940)". Wreck location and details. Wreck Sites-www.wrecksites.eu. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  15. "Liberator crash Thanet 27th April 1944". Liberator crash Thanet 27th April. The Kent & Sussex History Board. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  16. "Thanet Life". The Foreness Story - A Liberator Crash of 1944. Thanet Life. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
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