The Tattie Lads

Enduring great danger and often terrible conditions in heavy seas, the Rescue Tug Services worked tirelessly to bring to port damaged vessels and keep up the supply of food and essential items during two world wars.They were first deployed towards the end of the First World War to support and if necessary to salvage merchant shipping that had been damaged by U-boat attacks. During the Second World War they were needed even more urgently when ships bringing food and other essential supplies to a beleaguered Britain were attacked by both air strikes and submarines. Although part of the Royal Navy, the contribution of the Rescue Tug Service remained curiously absent from the naval history of the Second World War. Yet the Service had developed what a wartime American newspaper called 'a new type of naval vessel the British fighting escort tug' and had saved millions of tons of shipping, both warships and merchant ships, not to mention the crews and the precious cargoes....