Page 87 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

Operations in False Bay

The first time the Motor Boat Wing was involved with a rescue was over a two-day period

of 26 - 27 February 1940. R0 was despatched to Cape point to search for Beaufort 757, call
sign S, from 36 Flight, that had failed to return from a patrol. The aircraft had left on sunset

perimeter patrol, and routine position reports were received at 16h52 and 17h50 and then
nothing more was heard. By 19h45 an overdue report was filed and finally confirmed at

20h15. Immediately two standby aircraft took off and the crash boat, an armoured boat, a
destroyer and two SDF vessels, put to sea.

Conditions were not ideal and it was impossible to search effectively in the dark and
eventually the search was called off at 00h15. The next day all available aircraft continued

the search. On 28 February flares were reported off Cape Agulhas, but an air search

revealed nothing.

During March the crews were under intensive training in the handling of the craft, salvage
operations and basic rope work. It was only on 1 April that buoys were laid on the

Strandfontein range, and this after consultation with the Royal Navy and the Air Armament
and Training School at Youngsfield. Otherwise seamanship and boat handling training

continued, including interception exercises with aircraft.

The armoured boats were well occupied with the training of bomber crews and by May

Malgas reached her first 100 hours of operation. Malmok was being used mainly in the
training role but on 30 May 1940 Col. Venter boarded the launch at Kalk Bay and was

taken out to visit the RMS Queen Mary lying at Simon’s Town. Both the armoured boats
and Malmok spent time at sea co-operating with the Air Force, either acting as targets or

standing by at sea in case of an accident.

The Cape sea route had become vital to the war effort in East Africa and Egypt. At some

stages in mid 1940 there were up to 390 ships either leaving or arriving off Cape Town.

Merchant crewmen and the local military authorities were well aware that anti-submarine

84