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'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Gareth Sergeant on behalf of Geoffrey Faulkner and has been added to the site with his permission. the author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

The Isle of Urst is the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, and it was here on the 28th of June 1944 that RAF Rescue launch 2507 began when a message was received that the crew of a Catalina Flying Boat had come down in the sea just on the edge of the Artic Circle. There is no darkness at the time of the year in these northern waters when F/O Bill Garret and his crew, of whom I was one, set off into a rising gale. The boat was not of the fastest type with a top speed of 27 knots but was considered more suitable for rougher weather. It had so called 'long range fuel tanks', in fact there were several 40 gallon drums of high octane petrol in a cradle on top of the engine room. Soon after sailing, the starboard engine began to give trouble and the journey continued northwards on the remaining engine.
When the position of the crash was reached nothing was to be seen so a search began. In the trough of high seas a dinghy is difficult to see from a low flying launch. Luckily, a Sunderland appeared and dropped into a dive over the dinghy some way away. A Liberator Bomber also appeared and kept circling. Without these our task would have been much harder.
Upon reaching the dinghy a line was thrown across and the survivors pulled aboard with some difficulty and taken to the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.
It transpired that they were a Canadian crew based in Iceland and whilst patrolling spotted a U-Boat on the surface which they attacked. The U-Boat did not dive and used its anti-aircraft guns to set the Catalina on fire. Despite this, the attack was resumed and the U-Boat was successfully attacked with depth charges.
The aircraft was forced to ditch but one of the two rubber dinghies was so badly damaged that the eight man crew were forced into the other, which meant two had to remain in the water. After some hours they spotted another Catatlina and fired flares which luckily were seen. Markers were dropped and the aircraft continued to circle until forced to leave due to petrol levels being low.
A Warwick aircraft now appeared and dropped an airborne lifeboat by parachute but this broke up in landing in the rough seas. During this two of the survivors had died of exposure but all could now be crowded into the dinghy. When they were finally picked up by the Rescue Boat F/L David Hornell died on board despite all efforts. He was later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his determined attack on the U-Boat.
Some of the aircraft assisting had spotted survivors of the sunken U-Boat and had dropped dinghies to them. After a good nights sleep at Lerwick we went on a different boat with four marines on guard to pick them up but we were recalled because of U-Boat activity in the area

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