The forth was Harold Porter, and he is often assumed to be another Leigh man. He was actually a naval rating that was assigned to Renown when she reported to Southend Pier for duty in May 1940, and could easily have not gone to Dunkirk. Born in West Bromwich in 1921 to Sidney and Mabel Porter, Harold Graham Porter's father was a jeweller. Between 1934 and 1938, Harold attended the prestigious public school Malvern College, but apparently was not particularly academic as a quite blunt report of his death in the school journal records.
We believe that after training at HMS Royal Arthur, a shore establishment at the Butlins site at Ingoldmells, near Skegness, Porter was attached to HMS Safeguard, a shore establishment at Southampton, as an Ordinary Signalman. When the call went out for little boats and crews to go to France, he was due leave but volunteered.
The Thames boats that volunteered for duty were assembled at the pier head, and the civilian crews were employed by the Navy, the King's Regulations preventing civilian crews from assisting the military in a combat zone. Each boat was assigned a Naval rating, and Porter was given to Renown under Harry Noakes.
The boats headed to Margate, from where they made the crossing to France with many other small boats. We know that the flotilla was scattered by an attack by forty enemy planes that were seen off by Spitfires, and reached the beaches in the early evening. Initially the boats worked directly from the beaches, ferrying troops to the larger vessels in deeper waters for the journey home. As the tide ebbed, they moved into the harbour, taking men from the mole, the long concrete pier that extended over half a mile out from the shore.
It is likely that the young signalmen had been instructed to ensure that the fishermen followed orders under fire.
There is an exchange recorded between Endeavour's skipper, Fred Halls, and 19 year-old Signalman Eric Marsh, where the youngster convinces the reluctant skipper that he has to take his small boat through a curtain of heavy shelling to the mole in Dunkirk's harbour. While not stated, it's not impossible to imagine what Marsh's orders might have been should Halls have refused.
Eventually, having spent many hours rescuing men, the Leigh boats headed back to England. On board Letitia, which was being towed by the trawler Ben and Lucy, skipper Arthur Dench was hailed by his nephew Fred Osborne, the engineer on Renown that they'd broken down. Letitia threw a line and they all headed towards England's shore, little knowing the tragedy that would soon rend the night with heat, light and splintered wood.
Harold Porter was just 18 years old when he lost his life alongside the three fishermen from Leigh.
The Marvernian, the journal of Porter's alma mater memorialised its alumnus as follows;
'Ordinary Signalman H.M.S. Royal Arthur. At the time of the evacuation from Dunkirk he was due for leave, but apparently volunteered with three local fishermen to help in their fishing boats. A letter from the Captain commanding to his parents says: "They had saved 1,000 lives and were being towed by another boat when they struck a mine and were blown up. Your boy had always done well and as their commanding officer I have seen what these boys have done and I am proud of them." Being blessed with neither good health nor outstanding ability he made no great mark at school, and it is said that he was over-sensitive about his apparent lack of success; but all will allow that when his chance came he took it and that his name stands high on our "Roll of Honour".
The Malvernian quote paints a rather unflattering portrait of a young man who, like so many others, never got to explore his potential properly.
Harold's memory is kept alive by his family to this day. His great grandniece told us that the family discovered the Endeavour Trust website whilst doing some research for a school project for Armistice Day in 2020 for her then-seven-year-old son,, who is obsessed with history and particularly the 1940s. Harold's photograph has had pride of place on his wall for many years. It was revealed that the family didn't know much about Harold's life either, because his death was so traumatic that he wasn't spoken about much beyond being described as 'lost in the war'.
She said, "I am immensely honoured to be a relative of Great Uncle Harold and his photograph sits proudly in my home. I am so glad I was able to discover his story and learn how he helped save the lives of so many men as part of the Little Ships. So many brave souls lost. I hope by sharing the story of the Little Ships with my children, their memory can be honoured and live on."
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