Nothing to do with Bridlington, but this is an extract from my Fathers' reminisences about being a Spitfire pilot on 72 Sqn, Biggin Hill, 1942. It gives a flavour of the job the Marine Units did and is similar to the story in "The Sea Shall Not Have Them".
On 6th June we were sent down to Manston for an Air Sea rescue job. Apparently a bomber had been shot down just off the Dutch coast or the Belgian coast, somewhere, they weren’t sure and we were supposed to be looking for some chaps in a dinghy. Well we took off and scoured the North Sea as far as we could, couldn’t find anything, and then we came back, landed, ‘B’ Flight took off and searched again and they were just about to return when P/O Kitchen spotted five bomber chaps in a dinghy just off Ostende. So he reported that and we immediately took off to give them cover and at the same time an Air Sea rescue launch shot out from Dover or somewhere to pick up these bomber boys. So we covered the launch until it picked up these bomber boys and it really was exciting to watch them. I don’t know how fast the launch was going but it left a wash about half a mile long, it really was moving. Anyway, it got out to the dinghy, swung round, hooked up the dinghy, grabbed the chaps aboard, all without stopping and then belted for home. Now by this time we thought as we were obviously visible from Ostende we’d be surrounded by 190s and we’d probably have a decent little fight. In actual fact nothing came over to have a bang at us, so we escorted the launch back, landed at Manston, refuelled and went back to Biggin.
Some time later we received a letter from the bomber boys, enclosing £1, and saying please have a drink on us, they were more than pleased at being picked up.
In those days £1 bought an awful lot of beer!!
jf