‘Henry Blogg holds the record for most medals – three gold, four silver and the George Cross’

IN ACTION: Fishermen rush to help crew of the Sheringham lifeboat in Norfolk. Inset left, Lizard lifeboatmen with kapok lifejackets

battle took place at Newcastle, County Down, where Coxswain Patrick Murphy rescued 39 men from the SS Browning, one of seven ships in a convoy, which had run aground in a gale in January, 1942.

His gold medal citation said: “It was a service of the greatest hazards in which the coxswain showed reckless daring, great coolness and superb seamanship.” He was also awarded the British Empire Medal.

A year earlier he had won two bronze medals for rescues, including saving one vessel that had hit a mine off the English coast and was drifting dangerously towards the Irish coast.

However, Henry Blogg, coxswain of the Cromer lifeboat in Norfolk for 38 years, holds the records for the most medals – three gold and four silver. He also won the George Cross for general war service and a British Empire Medal. In 150 launches during the war he and his crew rescued 448 lives, many of them downed airmen and sailors from convoy ships blasted by enemy fire.

A teetotaller, he rarely talked about his exploits, avoided the pub but relished returning home to be greeted with a warm bowl of soup from his wife Annie.

Coxswains should retire at 60 but he stayed at the helm until he was 74, passing away four years later in 1954.

“Cromer has always had good boats and good crews and it always will,” he said shortly before retiring. Among the RNLI