Great deeds in little ships

The Rescue Ships and the Convoys is a welcome reissue of a 1968 work by the naval historian Vice Admiral BB Schofield. Edited and expanded upon by the late author's daughter Victoria Schofield, this new edition includes previously unpublished material.

The book adds to our collective knowledge of the seafarers from British and Allied Merchant Navies – untrained for fighting at sea – who took part in heroic Second World War Atlantic and Arctic convoy missions on small mercantile ships.

The vessels' role was to rescue survivors from torpedoed ships, and as they were not designated as hospital ships under the Geneva Convention, they were subject to attacks like any other ship. The Schofields explain which types of merchant vessel proved most useful for the rescues, and recount the development of a new medical code for the safe transfer of sick and injured survivors.

The rescue ships' deployment reduced the loss of life from Merchant Navy supply vessels in the convoys. They played an important part in the long drawn-out struggle against the U-boats by virtue of the HF/DF equipment with which they were fitted, and also because they were able to relieve the escort commanders of some anxiety about the survivors of torpedoed ships.

With many secrecy restrictions having been lifted since 1968, Victoria Schofield is able to use the 2024 edition to pay an interesting new tribute to an officer said to have built up the Rescue Ship Service 'from nothing'. This naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Louis F Martyn, had also served on cargo ships and even once survived a shipwreck. Surgeon Rear Admiral Sir John McNee also writes an insightful foreword, noting that he and and Lt Cdr Martyn had kept up the pressure for a new simplified medical code at the time.

The Rescue Ships and the Convoys: Saving lives during the Second World War
By Vice Admiral BB Schofield CB, CBE
Edited and expanded by Victoria Schofield
Pen & Sword, £25
ISBN: 978 10361 02661