'Fascinating' Second World War 'Little Ships' boat RFC113 restored after being found field and sold on eBay
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The powerboat was used on several evacuation missions including the Miracle of Dunkirk
An unsung hero of a power boat used extensively during the Second World War has been fully restored after being sold on eBay.
RFC113 was found in a deteriorating state in a field in 2012, but has been brought back to life again 14 years later. She has been brought to Port Solent ahead of commemorations in northern France.
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Owner Jon Blair said he recovered the vessel from a field, where she was “looking very sorry for herself” and “in somewhat unrecognisable form”. “It has taken me until now to get her restored to her former glory once more,” he told The News.
“I was idly looking for something to use on the River Thames and she looked different and interesting. I went to have a look and the rest is history. It’s nuts. It was completely inappropriate to bang up and down the Thames. I wasn’t looking for a historic vessel, but I’m a mug for a challenge. She needed someone to recue her so I thought I’d have a go.”
Evacuation missions and extensive history
RFC113 is considered the only surviving serviceable craft from Operation Aerial, and the Jersey and St Malo evacuations. Captain John Heron Storey of 113 Squadron, a decorated veteran from the First World War, offered the boat to the admiralty for use a year after the Second World War broke out. RFC113 was built in 1938 by British Power Boat Company of Hythe
She was crewed by volunteers from Jersey and was involved in the evacuation of British and Allied forces in Operation Dynamo, known as the Miracle of Dunkirk. More than 338,000 personnel were brought to safety from the beaches and harbour of northern France between May 26 and June 4, 1940.
After her exploits to Dunkirk, partially marred by engine faults caused by a faulty shear pin, she was then sent to Jersey. The plan was to evacuate any Channel; Islanders who wanted to leave. RFC113 then joined the ‘Little Ships’ from the St Helier Yacht Club to rescue allied servicemen from St Malo between June 17 and 18, 1940.
The group were involved in an operation alongside HMS Wild Swan, where Commander Howard Johnson commanded a team of sappers to destroy opposition port installations at St Malo using eight tonnes of high explosives. Situated at St Malo while the demolition teams set off all the charges, she made a run for it with the soldiers as the Nazis entered the town. The crew, and an escaping schoolmistress with a bicycle, left for England while the port of St Malo burned.
Following further exploits around the Channel Islands and during Operation Aerial, she was sent to the coasts around Dundee, Arbroath, and Aberdeen. She spent the next four years as an Air Sea Rescue Boat, used to assist flying and bombing training. In the Spring of 1944, the crew volunteered to be part of the Normandy invasion fleet. RFC113 arrived on the south coast by lorry shortly after D-Day.
The vessel was used as a despatch boat to transport confidential messages, equipment, and personnel, across to France. Shortly after VE Day on May 8, 1945, the volunteer crews returned home to Jersey and were retained by the Admiralty until 1947.
Years of effort and setbacks
After years of different owners and having her name changed to Esther Barbara and Makaira, she was found on the grass at Pembroke Dock outside the former Sunderland Flying Boat Trust. Mr Blair said initial testing determined that the power boat could float, but one of the engines didn’t work. He and his friends, one of which used to restore castles, spent a year trying to restore RFC113 at Reading Marina with little progress.
“By the time we dropped loads of tools over the side into the marina, and spent the first hour pumping water that dripped off the tarp inside every time we visited, it wasn’t going anywhere,” Mr Blair said. The twin screw express cruiser was passed on to Michael Dennett’s Boatbuilders in Chertsey to be restored.
“We took her right back to the bare bones in the end,” Mr Blair said. “The project kept stalling because I kept running out of money. It grew incrementally. You start not realising what you let yourself into. The end result after 14 years is fantastic. She’s a beautiful vessel and it turned out she has a fascinating history.”
Skipper Guy Riviere, of Michael Dennett’s boatbuilders, said her hull is original, though she has been resheathed. “We tried to stick to her original configuration as much as we can, but there have been many changes - even during the war,” he added. “It has been difficult to pinpoint exactly how she was, but we stuck pretty true to how she was found. She had a long service.”
Searches through various archives, memoirs, and trips to the Southampton registry office, uncovered her historic past. After a quick trip to Gosport, RFC113 is due to depart to Ramsgate via Eastbourne. At the end of May, she’s due to be in Ouistreham in Normandy for the D-Day commemorations, with plans for her to be at the Pegasus Bridge memorial.
“I’m so pleased about the process, but I’m also slightly drained and exhausted,” Mr Blair said. “We’re finally focused on meeting historic obligations. We took her to Jersey for the VE Day event and they were so pleased to see her. She absolutely needs to go to the Pegasus D-Day event.
“We have some former owners in the 1960s who are still around and want to see her again. She’s already been to Jersey and is fully seaworthy. If you look at the picture of her when she was new in 1938 to now, we got as close as we could to making her how she was. The boatyard has done a brilliant job.”
Richard Hellyer, who uncovered much of the research for RFC113, added: “It’s brilliant she was rescued and fully restored. Children of Second World War veterans are coming to the end, and my direct contact with them will go. The new generation are less interested, but they need to be. Estuaries are littered with such boats, and I hope we can save them.”