100 years on: Heroic Cromer lifeboat rescues remembered

Every now and then, within sight of Cromer's grey, looming ramparts, a scouring sea retreats to reveal fragments of a century-old wreck that are a telling reminder of nature's destructive forces and man's remarkable capacity to overcome them.

The scarcely recognisable remains of a 1,440-ton Swedish cargo ship are a rust-crusted link to a marvel of life-saving and an epic of wartime heroism like few others.

Played out against the backdrop of the First World War, the story of the Fernebo is a story of gallantry against the odds as far removed from the killing fields of France and Flanders as it is possible to imagine.

For the leading actors in this wartime drama were not innocent young recruits marching like lambs to the slaughter, but a bunch of civilians with an average of 50 and the weather-gnarled features to match.

And their enemy was not German, nor even human, but rather the elemental power of nature at its most awesome and terrifying.

On a wild night in January 1917, the lifeboatmen of Cromer were confronted not by thunderous guns or the rattle of machine-gun fire but the relentless roar of a gale-driven sea as fearful as any man-made weapon of destruction.

What they achieved during more than 14 harrowing and hazardous hours would not alter the course of the war one iota, but in the wretched aftermath of the bloodbath on the Somme, the rescue of even a few men from almost certain death was a cause for celebration.

More significantly, the rescue mission which quickly and deservedly became the stuff of local legend also signalled the beginning of an unparalleled record of gallantry that would result in Cromer's coxswain being hailed as the greatest lifeboatman ever.

For while all who embarked in the Royal National Life Boat Louisa Heartwell shared in the glory of arguably the bravest rescue performed by a 'sail and pulling' crew in the history of the RNLI, there is no question that their success was, in large measure, due to their extraordinary leader – Henry Blogg.

As defiant as he was determined, Blogg was the unflagging guiding spirit behind a real 'mission impossible' which, unusually for such sea-going dramas, was witnessed by a spellbound crowd lining the shore.

A veteran of 22 years' service, nearly eight of them spent as coxswain, the 40-year-old fisherman had already displayed outstanding qualities of leadership and seamanship in numerous rescues amid the treacherous sandbanks lying off the north Norfolk coast.

But none of them came remotely close to testing his resolve and his reading of the sea as did his efforts to save the marooned crew of the Swedish steamer Fernebo on the night of January 9, 1917.

A mission that would have been exceptional in any circumstances was rendered near to superhuman by the exertions made by Blogg and many of his crew only hours before.

A day of what the EDP described as 'heroic endeavour' began shortly after 11am when the Greek cargo ship Pyrin signalled for assistance as she drifted helplessly towards the shore, pushed on by a north-easterly gale of such intensity that the Cromer lifeboat station's senior administrator doubted whether a rescue operation could be mounted at all.

Even Blogg was dubious. Asked whether he thought the lifeboat could even be launched, his reply was characteristically candid. 'I doubt if we shall,' he said as the giant waves continued to batter the shore, 'but we shall have a rare good try.'

Not for the first time, and nor for the last, Blogg's 'rare good try' proved equal to the task. Incredibly, after a struggle lasting more than three hours, during which the lifeboatmen had battled winds, currents and sub-zero temperatures as well as mountainous waves, the Louisa Heartwell returned to the beach, carrying 16 survivors out of harm's way.

That should have been the end of their day's work. But they had barely downed their cups of cocoa and changed into dry clothes before word reached them that another ship was in even worse trouble, some three or four miles out.

Though no one knew it at the time, the Fernebo, with its cargo of timber bound for London, had burst a boiler before striking a mine laid by a German submarine. With her back broken and chief engineer washed away, the remaining 17 men began their helpless drift inshore at the mercy of an unforgiving tempest.

So exhausted were the Cromer lifeboatmen following their earlier exertions, it was decided to hand responsibility for the rescue operation to the neighbouring stations at Sheringham and Sea Palling.

But try as they might, neither crew could find a way of launching in the face of the crashing seas. By the time word of their failure reached Cromer it was late afternoon and conditions had worsened appreciably. Blogg, however, was willing to have a go and it was a measure of his crew's faith in him that, weary though they were, they were prepared to follow him in an attempt which many onlookers thought bordered on the suicidal.

Helped by a small army of volunteers, including some soldiers who were stationed in the town on coastal defence duties, the Louisa Heartwell burrowed her bows once more into the towering breakers.

But this time not even the addition of three new crewmen could help her force her way through. For fully half an hour, according to the EDP's vivid report, 'they strove at their oars' but the sea was too strong and 'they were eventually beaten back to the shore'.

No sooner had their struggle ended than another began.

In the midst of their vain efforts, six men from the Fernebo had left the wreck in a small boat in a desperate attempt to reach the shore. Riding the waves like a tossing cork, the boat made rapid progress, but those looking on were not deceived. As the EDP observed: 'It was immediately evident that her life in the surf would be short, and it was with a gasp of horror that the great crowd that lined every point of vantage on the front witnessed a big sea hit and fill her, throwing all the occupants into the water.'

Miraculously, this act of folly was redeemed by a display of greater courage as a host of onlookers, led by a teenage Scottish soldier, Private Stewart Holmes, plunged into the sea, wading up to their arm-pits to form a human chain that somehow contrived to haul all six of the hapless crewmen to safety.

Not long after, according to the EDP, the Fernebo broke in two – each half kept afloat by her cargo of timber with the 11 remaining men trapped together in the stern section that grounded a few hundred yards out from the shore near to a groyne just east of the town's Coastguard Station. So near and yet so far.

Attempts were then made to get a line across to the survivors. In all, 12 rockets were fired by men from life-saving brigades based at Cromer and Sheringham, but 'owing to the force of the wind and the smallness of the target the task was found to be an impossible one'.

By 9pm the effort was given up as hopeless. Nothing it seemed could save the marooned men from the sea's remorseless pounding. Blogg, however, remained convinced that he could reach them. Turning to Commander Basil Hall, the RNLI's district officer who had taken charge of the rescue operation, he pressed his case most forcibly.

Hall, however, was not convinced. The crew, he reasoned, had not sufficiently recovered from their strenuous exertions, but Blogg was adamant that the only hope of salvation for the trapped sailors lay with him and his men.

With great reluctance, Hall consented to a second launch a little more than five hours after the defeat of the first one. At around 9.30pm, with a searchlight converted from anti-aircraft to life-saving duty fixing the dislocated stern of the Fernebo in its brilliant beam, the stage was set for another try.

Once again the Louisa Heartwell was hauled across the wind-blasted beach and released into a 'terrific sea' and the fight between man and nature was renewed.

It was the start of what the EDP called 'another stupendous struggle'. Hall watched it all with a mixture of anxiety and awe. In his graphic report, he later wrote: 'For half an hour these splendid men made the most gallant attempt to reach the vessel – over and over again the boat was swept back into shallow water inshore, but each time they succeeded in keeping her head on to the sea and pulling her out again into the deeper water about halfway between the ship and the shore.

'Bathed in the brilliant beam of the searchlight, one moment standing on end as she mounted the crest of a huge breaker, at another with her nose buried in the trough of the sea, or completely lost to sight as a sea broke right over her, the lifeboat made a sight which will never be forgotten by the hundreds of spellbound spectators who lined the beach.

'I myself would not have believed it possible for even a strong and young crew to do so much with this heavy boat…'

But courage and fortitude were not enough. With five oars broken, three more torn from the men's grasp and the boat dangerously close to the groyne, Blogg was forced to concede defeat again, though not for long.

Allowing the Louisa Heartwell to wash ashore in what he regarded as merely a temporary setback, Blogg paused long enough to obtain some replacement oars and for his men to steel themselves for a third attempt based on a new plan of attack.The Cromer coxswain had noticed what others had missed. The tide had reached a point where the flow of water was running from a breakwater almost as far as the wreck itself. If he could contrive to place his boat into the flow, then rescue was not just a possibility but highly probable no matter how strong the wind and how high the waves.

Yet again, the carriage rolled into the breakers and the oarsmen took the strain. Battling to find a way through the spray and the gale-whipped surf, they were hurled back repeatedly. But this time they were not to be denied.

'At last, amidst great enthusiasm,' reported the EDP, 'the boat was seen to be making its way through the terrific waves to the desired goal, which she reached, and succeeded in taking off 11 men and bringing them to shore.'

With nothing to sustain them beyond their own courage and strength allied to their coxswain's outstanding seamanship, Cromer's stout-hearted lifeboatmen had turned imminent disaster into the unlikeliest of triumphs.

In the context of a global war that was claiming hundreds of lives on a more or less daily basis, the rescue of 27 men may not have amounted to much, but it nonetheless represented a timely boost to a weary nation's flagging morale.

The EDP acknowledged as much when it rejoiced at an opportunity to celebrate a 'story of endurance and heroic action' away from the battlefield. In lauding the 'splendid courage' displayed to overcome the 'incredibly great' difficulties faced, the paper declared: 'Norfolk is proud of the men who have made our coast famous for the courage and efficiency of its lifeboat work; and never surely had it greater reason for its pride than on this occasion.'

The RNLI was no less proud. In recognition of the gallantry displayed by so many, a new Bronze medal was specially created and given to 12 members of the crew who had ventured out three times that day in addition to the Silver medals awarded to acting second coxswain William Davies and, more unusually, to the gallant Seaforth Highlander, Stewart Holmes.

It was a long list topped, inevitably, by the richly-merited Gold medal – the first of a record-breaking three – to Henry Blogg. In a prolonged saga of heroism, Basil Hall was emphatic in his belief that Blogg had been the determining factor in the successful outcome of the rescue.

'Without for a moment detracting from the part played by the rest of the crew,' he wrote, 'I feel bound to say… that without him the crew could not have been got to take the boat off during the afternoon and evening…

'It was his own remarkable personality and really great qualities of leadership which magnetised tired and somewhat dispirited men into launching…'

A century on, those words still resonate. In the midst of a centenary cycle of First World War remembrance, they underline most eloquently why a display of near-superhuman courage so close to home is as worthy of commemoration as the greatest acts of heroism performed on any battlefield throughout the history of that long and bloody conflict.