The five men of the Cinq-Frères rescued after a shipwreck

On a Wednesday around 9 p.m., the twenty-five-tone trawler Cinq-Frères was returning to Grandcamp after a scallop fishing when it hit a World War II wreck off Vierville-sur-Mer. The sea was rough. Philippe Germain, the shipowner who commanded the boat, had a red rocket fired and launched an SOS. The ship being in great difficulty, he embarked with the four crew members in the Bombard canoe.

The rescue stations on the coast mobilized, but the state of the sea complicated the search. Despite the spotlight, the boat remained untraceable. Several gendarmerie brigades, under the orders of Captain Thévenet, commander of the Bayeux company, borough firefighters and Mr. Loison, director of Civil Protection, were present.

Alerted around 10 p.m. by Mr. Legallois, from Vierville, the Port-en-Bessin rescue center tried to go out to Zodiac, but the conditions forced him to return.

The trawler La Mouette, commissioned by Noël Véron, then patrolled the scene. The newspaper reports the discovery of the "Bombard canoe envelope" shortly before 11 p.m., then calls signaling nearby men, in their tires. The five sailors were collected by La Mouette and landed in Port-en-Bessin around 0:40 a.m., before returning to Grandcamp.

The intervention was particularly urgent: the rising tide pushed the canoe towards the cliff, where the violence of the sea and the currents risked crushing it. The trawler had been cut in half; its engine rested on the beach, about thirty meters in the sand.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The term "bomb canoe envelope" is that of the newspaper; its precise meaning is not explained.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/PhDoc10/1972Oct13-FaitDivers.jpg