Remembering heroes.

 With the advent of the New Year it is the custom in the United Kingdom to honour heroes, and the great and glorious, in the New Year's Honours List. This set me to thinking of some of the heroes, men and women, whom I have been privileged to know as friends, colleagues, and indeed Family. 
My Father and Tina's Dad were heroes, my Dad was decorated for bravery on board a ship that was on fire and loaded with high explosives, Tina's Dad was on the beach at Normandy. Then there was the incident when both Dads disarmed a  Doctor's murderer in Bath and the policeman subsequently got the medal! But that's a story for another time. 
Odette Churchill, the British spy tortured by the Nazis, was my Aunt's friend, she was a heroine and I met her in Culmstock. Later I had the great privilege of working with David Shannon in Cunard [Offshore Marine]. He was the youngest of the Dam Busters winning 2 DFCs and 2 DSOs and ended the war as a Squadron Leader with the Pathfinders.

Then there was Fred Bailey in Collins out in Ras al Khafji who saved the son of Saudi Arabia's executioner from as asphalt fire.

John Hopkins, my best friend, was another quiet hero who had saved lives of colleagues from rough seas in the Bristol Channel. And Billy Clark who saved many Russian lives on a viciously stormy night in Shetland.

But there is one quiet Canadian, a Newfoundlander, who I would ask you to remember on this day when we honour heroes. His name is Harold Miller and he was brave beyond words.

Back in the 1980's I was the Manager of Fleet Operations for Fishery Products and directing fleets out of Catalina, Trepassey, Marystown, Grand Bank, and Fortune. The "Atlantic Elizabeth" sailed on 2nd December 1987 for the Grand Banks to fish for flounder with 10 other vessels in that area. The weather was poor in this position some 150 miles to the east of Cape Bonavista, with the wind W or SW gusting 42 knots. The vessel was hauling back and the trawl door was coming home. Roger Hyde, a fisherman was disconnecting the trawl door and transferring wires when an unexpected tension on a wire throwing him over the bulwark into the Atlantic. The seas were running 10 to 13 feet at the time and it took half an hour to get the gear on board and back close to the casualty who was being kept afloat by his PFD vest. The Captain decided it was unsafe to launch a boat and manoeuvred close to him. Roger Hyde was in a dire state by this time - the cold was getting into him. He could not hold to lifebuoy or line. Harold Miller volunteered to put on a survival suit and go over side and assist. This he did and by this time the wind was 45 knots with seas 23 feet high. He managed to get a line around the casualty and the crew started to haul him out of the water. It proved to be tragically incomplete, Roger Hyde slipped out of the PFD and rope, plummeted into the ocean depths never to be seen again

Harold Miller was still in the water and this time he line was water logged and fouling the bilge keel of the trawler. He was submerged at least 4 times before being dragged aboard from the Jacob's ladder.

The search continued but was without any success. It was a tragic incident particularly for that brave man Harold Miller.
The Governor General in Ottawa later awarded Harold Canada's highest award and he went on to get command of a trawler. He was a quiet smallish man but certainly one of the bravest men that I have met.