Tony Dixon on Saving Lives at Sea and Boatbuilding
Lisa: And, was John Samuel Whites in those days, was it a big employer of local people?
Oh, magnificent, I think there was two or three thousand people.
Lisa: And in those years when your father was working there, what kind of things were they building?
They were building Destroyers and all the little boats, Mine Sweepers. In fact, I think they had a submarine shed that they built some subs in the 1st World War, but in the 2nd War they was all military stuff.
Lisa: So they were building things which were very important for this country in the War?
Yes, which is the same as Uffa was, he was…he designed and built the Airborne Lifeboat.
Lisa: Yeah, do you want to tell me a bit more about that?
The Airborne Lifeboat? Well is was a twenty-three-foot boat that had inflatable bags and used to be dropped by parachute from the air to the shot-down crews of the Bombers who were taking part in raids over the continent. And they got enough petrol to get them back to the North Sea but a lot of them crashed in the North Sea and they only had little rubber dinghies which automatically drifted them on the tides back to the Holland coast, so they’d get picked up and made Prisoners of War.
But with the Airborne Lifeboat they could drop the boat near the dinghies, they’d get in what was a little motor sailing boat and they motored back to English shores. And, quite a lot of airmen were saved.
Lisa: So Uffa was responsible for the design of that boat. Did he manufacture them as well?
Yes, he did. He had his own boat building yard.
Lisa: And where was that?
That was at West Cowes near the Police…near the Duke of York. It was next door to Clare Lallows Boatyard, so he had quite a number of staff working there during the War. I think about sixty or seventy people.
Lisa: And about how many of those boats were made, do you know?
Hundreds. He was the main supplier of all the plans that different yards round the country…they were building, well literally hundreds, I should think about seven or eight hundred about.
Lisa: And, this was during what time? Do you know when about he came up with this idea?
It was round about 1941 or ’42. ‘Cos of his connections with the fourteen-foot international dinghies before the War which were very popular, Lord Brabazon, who was then the Minister for Aircraft during part of the War.
He was a pal of Uffa’s and Uffa went up to London and sold him the idea of the boat and he told Uffa to get an idea out within a month and if it looked any good he could carry on developing. Which is what happened.