Rescue At Sea

An historical account of sea rescue and rescue organizations from the earliest times to the present day. The author charts the development of lifesaving organizations, profiling milestones in their evolution, and incorporates heroic stories of coastal lifesaving.

The former head of the Coast Guard's Search and Rescue Division discusses the war on drugs, refugee smuggling, and oil spills, as well as rescue work, and describes the new equipment and techniques used by the Coast Guard.

The sea can be a treacherous place. Fortunately for those who face disaster at sea there is a highly trained group of people who make it their life's work to race to the rescue. These are the marine search and rescue workers of the Canadian Coast Guard. They do what most of us would not even contemplate; brave the elements in their rescue vessels, often acting as paramedics, midwives and firefighters on the water. They go out in unimaginable conditions and search long, harrowing hours for missing ships and sailors. These are their stories.

When the Second World War began in 1939 it was thought that it would be fought along the same lines as the First World War, with the Allied air forces operating from both Britain and France. With the fall of Britains Northern European Allies in May 1940, all that changed. From then onwards, RAF aircraft operating over enemy and enemy-held territory necessitated flights across both the North Sea and the English Channel.This meant that aircrew in difficulties would be forced to come down in both of these bodies of water. Therefore it was essential that some form of rescue service be made available to fish these airman from the water. But there were no aircraft in existence at that time that were designed for such a task: initially all that could be done was to use land planes to help locate anyone in the water, drop a dinghy to them, and then guide a boat to their position.Obviously a quicker and more reliable means of rescue was needed, and this came in the shape of the Supermarine Walrus, an amphibian airplane that could land on both sea and land. Several Flights of these airplanes were set up around the coast of Britain, concentrated mainly around the south and southeast of England. The Air Sea Rescue airmen did a magnificent job from 1941-45, rescuing hundreds of downed RAF and USAAF aircrew. It took a special type of airman to undertake these rescues and another kind of courage.As the war in North Africa developed, Walrus aircraft were needed in the Mediterranean, and later on either side of the Italian coast. Walrus squadrons operated just as successfully in this theater as around Britain. Aircrew operating over any stretch of water could always count on the ASR boys coming to their aid. This is their story.

A breathtaking minute-by-minute account of the most catastrophic tragedy-at-sea since the sinking of the Titanic—told by a survivor. More than one half-century later, the catastrophic ramming of the MS Stockholm into the Italian luxury liner, the SS Andrea Doria in 1956, is relived in this candid, heartrending account. Author Pierette Domenica Simpson, who, with her grandparents, survived the tragedy off the shoals of Nantucket, shares the human and technical aspects of what has become known as the greatest sea rescue in history. As only an eyewitness can do, Simpson shares the survivors’ harrowing recollections that meticulously recreate the terrifying and heart-wrenching tragedy that united poor immigrants and wealthy travelers alike. They give their accounts of ultimate despair and infinite elation after staring at their own reflections in the black ocean that night and seeing death stare back. Equally dramatic are the revelations of new facts exposed by nautical experts from two continents that finally solve the mystery of who was to blame for this most improbable collision between two random ships on the open Atlantic.