Elisabeth

After a long interview with Pat McCormick, then chairman of the Inishowen Sub-Aqua club and now a member of the True North Sub-Aqua Club, I found out that he had heard a story about a teenage girl, daughter of the Church of Ireland Rectory of Moville Lower, who had sailed out in her boat and single-handedly rescued several airmen from the wing of the plane and carried them to a minesweeper called the Sir Gareth. I could find no one who could verify this, and so the first part of my journey back to September 1942 began.

First of all, I had to find out how to get in touch with Reverend Benson, and so I phoned the Church of Ireland Department at Queen's University. I knew that Reverend Benson would probably be a very old man or dead by now; after all it was almost sixty years ago. A very helpful person there told me they had a Rector Benson on their books, but that he had retired and was living in Bangor. Hoping upon hope that he was still alive, and the same Reverend Benson of the parish of Moville Lower, I wrote a letter to him asking if he could verify the story of his daughter's part in the B-17 crew's rescue, as told to me by Pat.

The following Sunday I had a pleasant surprise and a lovely telephone conversation with Reverend Richard Benson's daughter, Elisabeth Ferguson. She told me that she had just arrived at her brother's house (Reverend Christopher Benson) for a visit and he had shown her my letter. He told her he was about to through it away, because he believed it had been written by some crank. He had not known about Elisabeth's part in the rescue of the airmen, and much of what she told me begins the first part of the tale of the Meltin' Pot.

On Saturday morning, 12 September 1942, Mrs Nellie Benson, wife of Reverend Richard Benson, and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Elisabeth were preparing to go sailing in their Uffa Fox design 12ft dinghy, Redwing. The dinghy had a 21ft mast, a racing centreboard and was well rigged. Mrs Benson, who was in her late fifties, was an excellent helmswoman. Elisabeth was also an excellent sailor and both ladies were looking forward to a pleasant day's sailing in Lough Foyle. It was a lovely end of summer's day with a light breeze blowing from the south and Elisabeth, who had recently come back from boarding school, was bending to check one of the pulleys when her mother's gasp drew her attention.

Looking in the direction her mother was pointing, Elisabeth was just in time to see a great B-17 bomber plane slap onto the surface of the choppy water. Quickly the two women launched the Redwing, and shortly they were emerging from the harbour only to find that the plane was sinking fast. Out on the far side of the lough they could see a small yellow inflatable with four men in it. Nellie Benson, who had a heart condition and should not really have been put in that position, nonetheless judged the tide exactly right. Crossing at an angle, and despite the fact it was quite a difficult manoeuvre against a 7-knot out-going tide, the two plucky women sailed towards the inflatable. When they came sideways alongside it, Elisabeth made it fast to the port side with the bow painter. She remembers how:

The airmen looked pale and were shivering with shock and did not speak a word to us, which I thought was strange. Although we tried to assure them that they were safe, in actual fact we were in danger, for the tide was carrying us speedily in the direction of the great sandbanks of the Tunns.

By now Nellie was worried. She knew they would be lucky to make a landing on the far shore of Magilligan Strand with the weight of the inflatable and four men tied alongside. However, to her great relief,and no doubt the airmen's, a vessel called the Sir Gareth, that Elisabeth believed to be a minesweeper, had come either from Culmore (in the North) or Moville. With the help of the sailors on board the minesweeper, Nellie and Elisabeth quickly transferred the men and the inflatable to it. By then the plane had sunk. Yet as Elisabeth and her mother watched the Sir Gareth head in the direction of Londonderry they realised that the wind and tide were against them and they would not be able to make it back to Greencastle. Nellie suggested that they sail to the double bay at Greencastle Golf Club, and when the two tired women reached it, they hauled Redwing onto the beach. From there, they walked the mile back to Greencastle.

Later, when the tide had turned around 5pm they walked back to the double bay, hauled the boat into the water and sailed it back to the safety of Greencastle harbour.

That evening, at the hermitage where they lived, Nellie and her daughter discussed with Reverend Benson all that had happened. The rector, who was a man of great vision and was largely responsible for persuading Donegal County Council to enlarge and improve Greencastle Harbour, was proud of his wife and daughter and told them so. At that time there were no other women who sailed in Greencastle.

The following morning the Bensons had a visitor. It was Elisabeth who answered the door, and she studied the man in the black suit as he asked her to show him where the bomber had sunk. Elisabeth told him she did not know the exact place, but that it was near Magilligan Point, on the far side of Lough Foyle. Elisabeth who knew the tides told him that the wreck might have drifted toward the Tunns. Without as much as a thank you, the man left; Elisabeth found out later that he was a representative of the American Government. The man's attitude, without any reference to Elisabeth and her mother's courage in rescuing the men, has always rankled with her to this day.

The airmen's crash and rescue was also witnessed by two local children. Ten-year-old James McLaughlin was busy helping with threshing corn when he heard the drone of a B-17 bomber. He had often seen B-17s and other planes flying past. He was just in time to see the Meltin' Pot hit the water; he stopped dead and watched in astonishment as the plane swung right around, its tail hitting the near bank. Almost at once it began to sink slowly, and as it did it was carried out into the deeper water.

At the same time, from her house above the golf links, sixteen-year-old Annie McCartney (née McCann) had heard the noise of the crashing plane, and she ran outside and watched as two airmen crawled out onto one of the wing tips. A few minutes later she saw Elisabeth and her mother sailing to their rescue. Annie remembers that the Bensons kept bees and sold honey.

The following is a report from an article in the Derry Sentinel newspaper two years after, of Elisabeth's wedding to Sub-Lieutenant James Martyn Imrie and a mention of the rescue:

Leaving for her honeymoon, which will be spent in the South of Ireland Mrs. Imrie, wore a two-piece ensemble of Lido blue material with wine accessories.

Both bride and bridegroom have always taken a keen interest in yachting. The bridegroom has on a number of occasions sailed a national dinghy in local waters, and carried off prizes. The bride's mother and bride have done much sailing in the Foyle. Yesterday's happy union recalls that on September 12, 1942, Miss Benson and her mother played an important part in rescuing the crew of a Flying Fortress when it came down in Lough Foyle.

They were setting out from Greencastle in their twelve-foot National dinghy when they saw the aircraft fall into the sea near The Tunns. Immediately they put about and proceeded toward the plane, which was still floating, and arrived some time before the rescue boat came on the scene.

Three men were clinging to the plane and in temporary safety, while they were two rubber dinghies nearby, one containing two men, and the other six.

They threw a line to the latter, and took it in tow. The wash of a small trawler, which arrived at some speed, sank the plane, and the three men on it were left in the water. The craft that Miss Benson and her mother were sailing was too small to risk taking the men aboard. The two men were picked up by the trawler, which also took on board the two men in the dinghy.

Miss Benson and her mother then brought their boat and the larger dinghy alongside the trawler and the six men were taken on board.

However, what Elisabeth and her mother did not know was that one airman, twenty-one-year-old Leland Kessler, had jumped from the sinking plane and was being carried away by the fast tide.

And so my second contact with the past began. Seamus Carey and some other members of the Sub-Aqua Club had already spoken and written to Lee Kessler, whom they thought to be the only airman by this time left alive from the Meltin' Pot.

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