An Cosantóir

44 The raft was left to drift and the lifeboat returned to Dunmore East where a reception committee including Red Cross volunteers and an ambulance were waiting. Once ashore, the men were placed onto stretchers and removed to a local hotel. Meanwhile the life raft drifted onto the rocks at Tramore and was smashed to pieces. Although a rescue party had assembled on the shore in full readiness, it was the generally held opinion that in their weakened condition, the ship wrecked mariners would not have survived. The sailors were cared for initially in Dunmore, before being removed to the Waterford County & City Infirmary for follow up treatment. Later the Waterford Standard interviewed both Van t'Hoff and Stanley Gillard in the Sailors Home in Henrietta Street, where they are under the care of Mr and Mrs Marno. Both men are fulsome in their praise for their rescuers and the kindness shown to them in Dunmore and later in Waterford. All three men eventually returned home, but as was their calling, they returned to sea and more adventures. Peter Schrage went on to serve on many ships, being torpedoed in 1944 while on board the SS Bodegraven near West Africa, an ordeal he survived. After further treatment Willem Van t'Hoff went back and served throughout the war, finishing his career in 1966 as chief engineer aboard the SS Rotterdam. 17 year old Gillard returned to England, where he was able to identify a handful of bodies washed ashore near St. David's in Wales as that of his crew mates. He also went back to sea, his last trip ending in another shipwreck, 6 days adrift at sea and suffering frostbite. The war for the men of LOP 17 would continue until 1945 and they would call out the lifeboat on several more occasions, amongst other duties. However, it is hard for me to say that anything they did was of more immediate importance than the duty they performed on that cold and blustery Thursday morning in January 1941. Their work was one of patience, observation, most probably boredom and certainly drudgery. But they did it nonetheless. They were only part of a nationwide response to an era of great suffering and fear in the country, providing a duty that is generally overlooked and unremarked. I'm sure each LOP had their own individual story to tell, but as Michael Kennedy pointed out in his fine work, Guarding Neutral Ireland, it was collectively that they played a more vital role. For in reporting to Army Intelligence on an hourly basis on the happenings around our coastline, they allowed a full picture to be grasped of not just the immediate threats to the state, but intelligence that was to prove invaluable to the Allies in their fateful struggle with the Axis forces too. At the end of "The Emergency", the Coast Watching Service was demobilised while the Marine Service element would go on to become our Naval Service. While it is with pride we can appreciate the work of the Naval Service over the past 75 years, it's also important to remember its origins and the activities that were its foundation. 1. McIvor.A. A History of the Irish Naval Service. 2006. Irish Academic Press. Dublin. p71 2. Kennedy.M. Guarding Neutral Ireland. 2008. Four Courts Press. Dublin p21-22 3. For more on this period in the harbour see Colfer B. The Hook Peninsula. 2004. Cork University Press. Cork specifically pp199-201, Power.P. History of Waterford City & County. 1990. Mercier Press. Cork pp275-288. Andrew Doherty. The Missing Mile Posts, Waterford Harbour Tides and Tales. https:// tidesandtales.ie/the-missing-mileposts/ 4. Kennedy. Guarding Neutral Ireland. pp42-48 5. Ibid p33 6. Ibid pp244-252 7. Information sourced from private correspondence with Michael Farrell, Chair of Barony of Gaultier Historical Society and via https://www.militaryarchives.ie/ collections/reading-room-collections/look-out-post-logbooks-september-1939- june-1945 8. Kennedy. Guarding Neutral Ireland. p34 9. This following account comes primarily from Waterford Standard. Saturday Feb 8th 1941. p1 It is based on an article featuring an interview with Arthur Wescott Pitt, then chair of Dunmore East RNLI, who gave a description of the incident based on talking to the three survivors. 10. Carroll D. Dauntless Courage: Celebrating the history of the RNLI lifeboats, their crews and the maritime heritage of the Dunmore East Community. 2020. DVF Print & Graphics. Waterford. pp127-129 11. Cork Examiner. Friday January 31st 1941. p4 12. Waterford Standard. Saturday February 22nd 1941. p3 13. Personal correspondence with John van Kuijk, who also provided details from his blog on the topic at https://www.nederlandsekoopvaardijww2.nl/en/ 14. See Dauntless Courage pp122-142 for the Emergency era call outs 15. Kennedy. Guarding Neutral Ireland. pp308-311 v 3 of the survivors of the SS Beemsterdijk from left to right: Willem Marinus van 't Hoff, Petrus Jacobus Schrage and Stanley William Gillard v A log book entry from the crew of LOP 17 in 1941 THE STEADFAST COAST WATCHERS

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