None But Heroes Sailed Here That Night

Off the Cornish coast,the bravest of the brave showed us the best that men can be

The Penlee lifeboat “Solomon Browne” actually drove onto the deck of the stricken freighter Union Star, December 19, 1981. From there its crew rescued four people in a raging hurricane before falling rearward onto the angry sea and then turning back to the ship once again to save the remainder.

“It’s more than just fish you’re buying when you buy fish. You’re buying men’s lives” Trevelyan Richards

Last week’s edition told the story of people in the little seaside village of Mousehole, on the coast of Cornwall, England —- of rugged fishermen laughing uproariously in “The Ship Inn” pub, telling tales on one another over rounds of Cornish ale and how they performed daring rescues of troubled vessels at sea as members of a lifeboat named the Solomon Browne.

I believe it may have been fate which placed me there in November, 1980, and allowed a strong friendship to emerge between those lifeboat crew members and me —- the only American ever to know them.

On the night of December 19, 1981, in winds clocked at 90 MPH, the Solomon Browne and her crew of eight men surged through huge waves on a rescue mission to save people trapped on a disabled freighter named “Union Star” off the coast of Cornwall.

The “Solomon Browne” and crew photographed immediately after a routine launch from the Penlee Station, Newlyn, into Mounts Bay, Cornwall.