Pair: Engineman J. I. Scott, Royal Naval Reserve, who responded to the wireless distress...

Pair: Engineman J. I. Scott, Royal Naval Reserve, who responded to the wireless distress signals from the American troopship Tuscania which had been torpedoed by a U-Boat en route to Liverpool in February 1918 and sank with the loss of 210 lives - the first ship to be sunk carrying U.S. Troops during the Great War British War and Victory Medals (4515T.S. J. I. Scott. Engn. R.N.R.) nearly extremely fine (2) £80-£100 --- Joseph Irvin Scott was born in North Shields, Northumberland, on 14 October 1878, and worked as an iron foundry labourer in 1911. Appointed Engineman in the Royal Naval Reserve, he was posted aboard the newly completed trawler William Symons from 28 October 1917 to 17 July 1918, and was thus present to assist the escorts of convoy HX-20 which had been targeted by UB-77 under Kapitan Wilhelm Meyer. The Northern Whig of 8 February 1918 offers more detail: ‘On Tuesday, February 5, about 6 p.m., a terrible catastrophe occurred off the Irish coast, when the Anchor liner Tuscania, carrying American troops, was torpedoed and sunk without the slightest warning. At dusk a torpedo fired at short range hit the vessel in the vicinity of the engine room. At the time of the catastrophe there were about 2,000 troops aboard and a crew of 240. Immediately the vessel was hit she listed badly to starboard, and many of the military men were thrown or jumped from the decks into the water, and in a few minutes scores of soldiers were swimming in the vicinity of the doomed liner. Others proceeded to their boat stations, only to find in several instances that their boats had been blown to atoms by the explosion. Immediately the ship was struck, the electric-light went out, and the men were left in total darkness.’ By 10 p.m., the Tuscania had sunk, bow first into the sea. Calls for help were soon answered by the fleet of trawlers from Port Ellen, whilst small numbers of men attempted to swim towards the coast of Islay. One American survivor later wrote to a friend back home: ‘Nine of us were finally washed ashore alive, some injured badly and all nearly drowned. We laid together by a large rock, in the wind, and had to listen to the moans and groans of our dying comrades till daylight. About twenty corpses washed ashore beside us when daylight came and we were rescued by a Highlander.’ In total, 132 men made it to Islay, all of whom were offered shelter. In his official report, Malcolm MacNeill - the grandfather of George Robertson, the future Secretary General of N.A.T.O. - was clear to praise his friends and neighbours: ‘Though they had so little, they gave so much to help those who were wrecked on their shores.’ Scott was subsequently ‘noted for good services rendered in rescuing the survivors of the Tuscania on 5 February 1918’, and was demobilised on 26 January 1919. The loss of the troopship is commemorated via a monument erected on the Oa Peninsula of Islay by the American Red Cross in 1919; less well known is the story of a young West Virginian named Harry Rainel Truman who survived the loss of Tuscania and later served in France with the 100th Aeronautical Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Service - described by journalists in 1980 as a ‘stubborn, crusty, whiskey-drinking diehard’, he died in the eruption of Mount St Helens on 18 May 1980 after refusing to leave his Spirit Lake home, the most famous casualty of the eruption.