Harold Harvey was an RNLI inspector for Wales. He'd come out of the navy as a young man and admitted himself that he thought he knew everything but he soon discovered that all the volunteers he was inspecting knew a great deal more than him.

He was only on the Holyhead lifeboat for the rescue that day because he happened to be there inspecting the boat when the shout went up.

The Nafsiporos, a Greek ship, had been monitored over three days as it drifted across the Irish Sea without power in a force 11 gale. The Douglas lifeboat from the Isle of Man was called out to track the ship at first but as it drifted towards Anglesey, Holyhead were called out. Holyhead lifeboat managed to intercept the Nafsiporos in horrendous conditions.

I found a quote from second coxswain Wil Jones from Holyhead who spoke of finding it quite comical that a Pacific liner captain kept on coming up to him, the volunteer, and asking if he knew what he was doing and where he was going. He had to ask him to pipe down - a lifeboat coxswain putting a sea captain in his place!

He also remembers the comedic aspect of the moment when one of the ropes holding the Nafsiporos's life boat snapped so it just swung around on one rope. They tried to tell the Greek crew to cut the other rope and let the lifeboat go but they didn't do it. Wil wasn't sure if it was because they couldn't hear them, or if they couldn't understand their strong Welsh accents!

The ship's lifeboat continued to swing around dangerously so Thomas Allcock, the Holyhead coxswain, gave the wheel over to Harold Harvey so that he could go up on deck. It's not clear whether Harvey took control or whether Allcock gave it up, thinking he could do better things on the foredeck - which he did. Allcock and Wil Jones, the other crew member, were amazingly brave on the deck right in the path of the ship's swinging lifeboat.

The ship's lifeboat did eventually crash down on the Holyhead boat, within a whisker of killing Allcock and Jones. Luckily, Harvey saw it in time and threw the boat into reverse so when the lifeboat hit the Holyhead boat it slid off into the sea. He remembers that the oars were sticking through the wheelhouse window.

They then withdrew and the Moelfre lifeboat came in to do a fantastic job in helping to rescue the survivors from the ship.

But even then the Holyhead boat's work wasn't done. The captain wouldn't abandon the Nafsiporos so they had to stay with her all night until a tug came to tow her back to Liverpool. They hadn't just had a very dangerous rescue, but a very long and arduous one too.

All members of both the Holyhead and Moelfre crews were given medals for their bravery - I don't think that's happened since. Harvey and Dic Evans, the coxswain of the Moelfre boat, were given gold medals, Thomas Allcock was given silver and everyone else received bronze.
Ray Kipling