On 30 September 1952, the idyllic Cornish fishing town of St Ives played host to an unexpected 1,000 tonne visitor, as Royal Navy warship HMS Wave broke her moorings during a heavy storm.
The Algerine-class minesweeper had been working as part of the Fishery Protection Squadron and following exercises in the Irish sea, she’d put down anchor in nearby St Ives Bay, around 200 metres from the town Pier.
Overnight, the vessel’s starboard anchor line had broken, and she was rapidly blown inshore. Townsfolk tried in vain to put a rope across from the pier to pull her, but the line snapped and HMS Wave met with the rocks, leaving a hole the size of a small car in her engine room and fuel tanks.
Next it was the turn of Her Majesty’s Coastguard, who deployed their Breeches Buoy, a rocket-launched zip line carefully secured between the boat’s deck and the quayside.
Paul Moran, now 82, was a 12-year-old local schoolboy at the time. He recalls: “I was joining the other children bunking from school in order not to miss out on an adventure. I remember a maelstrom of white surf, black clouds, and the ship heaving. It was all very exciting!”
“Coastguard Harry Barlow hailed the ship’s captain, shouting from the rocks, and after three attempts, the coastguard’s Breeches Buoy line was put into operation. Above the crowds holding the lines taut, I could see people’s heads bobbing as they were rescued.”
He added: “It was a very ordinary thing for people to help the Coastguard and RNLI in those days. Traditionally, local people had helped with hauling the lifeboat down to the beach. I still have lurid images of the scene and how it was a real anti-climax to go back to school and attend maths after!”
Neville Tubb, now 94, was a 21-year-old Royal Navy engineer on board. Nev stayed on the ship initially but recalls engineers being taken off in early hours of the morning, going across to St Ives via rope with the help of coastguard rescuers.
He said: “It was very stormy that night, that’s why HMS Wave didn’t dock in the harbour. We dropped anchor in the mouth of the harbour, so the ship didn’t hit the walls."
Ernest Horscroft, 57, Station Officer for St Ives Coastguard, shimmied himself across the Breeches line to transport sailors to shore while Ernest’s son Jim, 26, was among the one hundred-strong St Ives people near the town’s Arts Centre pulling the line tight through the rough surf.
Ernest’s grandson Stephen remembers: “Grandad was a St Ives Coastguard between 1940 and 1960. He was such a lovely man, awarded the British Empire Medal for his many rescues going up and down cliffs, even in his 60s, to save others.
“Born on the Isle of Wight, he spent his career at sea after joining the Royal Navy at 14 and was even hit by shrapnel at the Battle of Jutland as an Able Seaman aboard HMS Attack. Serving in the Royal Navy, Ernest didn’t get to meet his newborn son, my father, until he was three years old.”
62 sailors were rescued by Ernest, his colleagues, and townsfolk that day. Salvors later inflated a balloon in the vessel’s ruptured hull, where it was refloated on an unusually high spring tide and carefully towed for repairs.
Speaking about his grandfather’s service, Stephen said: “Even though St Ives itself has changed in those 70-odd years, that iconic vista hasn’t. When I attended a meeting at the Arts Centre during stormy weather, I could hear the howling, rumbling, and crashing of the waves, which made me think of him and his lifesaving work that day.
“I’m glad that the story of HMS Wave continues to be told, and I’m extremely proud of my grandfather and my dad, who came to help”.
“I think there’s a common thread of public duty that runs through us. I’m not a Coastguard, but I’ve worked and campaigned for Cornish communities and I’m glad to be part of a Cornish story that’s also part of my heritage and family history.”
Ernest Horscroft was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1955, living the rest of his life in St Ives, the town where he served until his passing at age 84 in 1979.
