We all know what a great job the coastguards do around the UK.
Today one of them, Terry Short, who is based just over the water, will be heading up to Buckingham Palace to receive his MBE for public and voluntary service from the Queen.
Terry, a recently retired winchman from the Coastguard helicopter flight based at Lee on Solent, heard of the awarded of his MBE back in June, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
He’s had a bit of an Action Man background. He joined Bristows Helicopters as a search and rescue (SAR) crewman at Sumburgh in Shetland in April 1984, after having served for 24 years in the Navy with the Fleet Air Arm, 18 years of which was spent as a search and rescue diver serving at RNAS Lossiemouth, Portland, Culdrose, and Yeovilton, and forming the SAR flight at Lee on Solent in 1973 when the RAF moved out. He also served as an SAR diver on HMS Eagle, Ark Royal, Bulwark (845 Squadron), Hermes (846 Squadron) and Intrepid (846 Squadron).
1988 saw him move from Shetland to Lee-on-the-Solent, to form the flight there as Senior Aircrewman, where he spent the next 21 years carrying out an enormous amount of rescues all the way up to his retirement aged 65.
His personal experiences on the receiving end of getting rescued, drove him on to help other, “During my time in the Fleet Air Arm I was rescued twice. Once in 1969 when I crashed whilst carrying out a SAR training flight at Portland, and again in 1974 when in the plane guard position on HMS Ark Royal when we were forced to ditch in the South Atlantic off the coast of Rio De Janeiro. So I know from personal experience how good it is to see a helicopter coming to the rescue!”
It’s people like Terry that keep sailor safe.
Coastguard Search and Rescue
image: clive_reedman under CC BY 2.0
