The rescue ships and the convoys : saving lives during the Second World War /Vice Admiral B.B. Schofield ; edited and expanded by Victoria Schofield.

"The Rescue Ships and the Convoys tells the history of one of the least known aspects of Second World War maritime history. In the early months of the war, altholugh encountering heavy losses of ships and lives at sea, there was no organised system to rescue survivors. The provision of hospital ships to accompany the convoys was precluded by the fact that they had to be lit and would therefore betray a convoy?s position. The solution was to create a fleet of 30 small Merchant Navy vessels of about 1,500 registered tons, whose prior occupation was limited to coastal trade. These 'Rescue Ships', commanded and manned by Merchant Navy personnel, carried Royal Navy medical doctors, as well as life-saving equipment, operating theatres, hospital beds, hoists, and lifeboats. Undeterred either by enemy action or atrocious weather conditions, these vessels accompanied close to 800 convoys in the North Atlantic and Arctic, saving over 4,000 lives. During their service, seven Rescue Ships were lost. This is a story packed with suspense, danger, achievement and tragedy. As Vice Admiral Schofield writes, it is a record 'of great humanitarian endeavour, of superb acts of courage, of a display of seamanship of the highest order, of a devotion to duty by medical officers under the most arduous conditions imaginable, of great deeds by men of the Merchant Navy in little ships on voyages they were never designed to undertake.'"