Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Sailor who saved 27 men from burning ship is Pride of Britain
ASOMERSET sailor who led a four-hour mission to save 27 men from a burning ship in towering seas has won a Pride of Britain Bravery award.
David Groves, from Taunton, alongside mate Alex Harvey from Hull, took part in one of the Royal Navy’s most dramatic rescues.
HMS Argyll was returning to Plymouth following a nine-month tour of duty in the Pacific. The Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate was travelling through a storm in the Bay of Biscay when it received a mayday call from the Grande America, a 28,000-tonne cargo ship which had caught fire 150 miles off the French coast.
Aboard the Argyll, leading seaman Mr Groves and able seaman Mr Harvey volunteered to enter the water in an eight-metre rigid inflatable boat. As they were lowered into the sixmetre waves, Mr Groves realised how extreme the situation had become.
“One minute you could see a ship on fire, the next it was hidden by a wall of water, and the closer we got, the more engulfed we were in the smoke,” said Mr Groves.
When the pair reached the merchant ship they faced a lengthy wait as the crew struggled to launch their
One minute you could see a ship on fire, the next it was hidden by a wall of water
DAVID GROVES
lifeboat – the Grande America’s high side and rough weather ruled out climbing down the ladder and into the pair’s inflatable. When the lifeboat eventually launched, it hit the water with such force that the engine was disabled, leaving the craft impossible to manoeuvre and drifting dangerously close to the burning ship.
Realising lives were at stake, Mr Groves managed to bring his boat nose-to-nose with the lifeboat. With Mr Harvey on the bow judging the right moment as the two craft lurched up and down in the swell, four of the merchant crew jumped from a small hatch into Argyll’s boat.
Mr Harvey said: “It was rough – very rough and as we got near to the ship, it turned out to be a lot worse than we’d imagined it. When the first guy jumped, I had to grab him to prevent him going overboard. I thought to myself ‘this is a bit hairy’.”
No more of the Grande America crew were able to leap between the two boats, and the waves snapped a tow rope, so Mr Groves used his initiative and skill to nudge the lifeboat full of crew members half a mile to the Argyll, where sailors and Royal Marines were waiting to haul the exhausted casualties to safety.
Commanding officer of HMS Argyll, commander Toby Shaughnessy, said: “Without doubt this was a near-run thing. The conditions were on the limit for recovery and this could just as easily have been a different result.”
Mr Groves was also awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal by the Duke of Cambridge for the same incident in 2020.
The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards with TSB is back next week to honour the nation’s unsung heroes. The awards, which celebrate ordinary people doing extraordinary things, will be broadcast on ITV on October 27 at 8pm. Co-hosted by Carol Vorderman and Ashley Banjo in front of a star-studded audience, the awards will feature extraordinary stories of bravery, selflessness and phenomenal fundraising feats.