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Description
Mr. Rusling talks about lowering a boat in to the water to rescue a man. They also found the body of one of the stokers in the water but he eventually died as a result of his wounds.
Frank Rusling
Frank Rusling est né à Belton, Lincolnshire, Angleterre, le 30 janvier 1922. Son père a fait déménager sa famille dans le comté de Suffolk, en Angleterre, où il a grandi. Il s'est enrôlé dans la Marine royale à l'âge de 15 ans parce qu'il adorait l'océan. Il est entré au service des communications de la Marine et a reçu l'instruction en signalisation visuelle. Il était très doué dans ce domaine et a rapidement gravi les échelons pour atteindre le grade de timonier. Le premier navire sur lequel il a servi fut le HMS Sheffield. Toutefois, il a travaillé sur d'autres navires et s'est rendu dans diverses parties du monde avec la Marine royale. Après la guerre, il a joint les rangs des policiers du Canadien Pacifique, où il a travaillé pendant 30 ans. Il habite aujourd'hui à Saint John, Nouveau-Brunswick.
Transcription
Well, we put down a boat to go and rescue him and when the boat was en route to pick that man up, the stoker, one of the stokers was found in the water and he had his lifebelt on which was half inflated and it was keeping him alive. Unfortunately he was brought in onto the ship, both legs were shattered, both arms were broken and of course water had entered his lungs. Unfortunately, the doctor - they had used the petty officers' mess on the foredeck as an operating theatre or at least a treatment theatre - and unfortunately that stoker died in the early hours of the following morning. It was miraculous that we did not sink because, because of our open deck work and the large volume of the engine rooms that we had. It was always said that we could not be struck and not sink. We could not have enough air-tight compartments in the ship to keep us afloat. We managed to be towed into Iran which was only 60 miles away and there they, they put a steel plate on the ship over the hole just to strengthen the ship and some weeks later we were towed into dry dock at Gibraltar where the ship was drained and, of, and then they covered the hole, there was nothing they could do to repair, it had just blown the engine room to pieces. There was nothing there except fragments.