Navy veteran remembers being told to 'save who you can' during Boscastle Floods

Lt Cdr Martin 'Florry' Ford, pictured this year, with the Sea King he flew with on the night of the flash floods. Credit: Royal Navy.

A Royal Navy veteran has recalled the horror of flying over Boscastle, 20 years after the village was hit by devastating flash floods.

Lt Cdr Martin 'Florry' Ford was one of the first on the scene in his Sea King helicopter of 771 Naval Air Squadron, when flash flood devastated North Cornwall on 16 August 2004.

A wall of water surged through Boscastle with terrifying force, dragging cars, trees and debris through both villages.

Nine aircraft hovered in the skies above, managing to airlift around 120 people to safety, many from damaged buildings and stranded vehicles. They ensured that no-one was killed.

Among the three Royal Navy helicopters, three RAF helicopters, two civilian air ambulances and a coastguard aircraft was Lt Cdr Florry Ford.

Around 120 people needed to be rescue by air as people were trapped in their attics and on roofs. Credit: Royal Air Force

“We were sat outside over the sea, as visibility was terrible, and we were hit by a microburst,” he said. “The rain was that heavy it was like a waterfall running off the rotor blades all around us.

“We were having to bail out the aircraft with our helmets. It was that serious that I remember Pete McLelland said to us: ‘Look boys, remind yourselves of the exits’.”

He said the deluge shorted out the helicopter’s communications, so the pilots and rear crew had to communicate using hand signals.

"The scene was it was like an action movie. There was beer kegs floating down, cars floating down, I think there was telephone box, people almost running away from the water. You could see parts of buildings missing."

It was a call from the coastguard before the comms dropped out fully that really shook the captain.

"It was probably one of the last communications I had from one of the Coastguard saying, 'Save who you can' and that just made that's on the back of my neck stand up."

WO Bob Yeomans & Lt Cdr Florry Ford receiving medals for their role during the Boscastle Floods of 2004 Credit: Royal Navy

It was a technically difficult mission navigating around so many aircraft in such a small space, while also avoiding power cables.

Ford remembers the children rescued coming up with "big smiles on their faces" while parents "were in deep shock" after having to decide which child to send up first.

Strange things were seen during the rescue operation as an RAF crew put a baby in a rucksack before winching it to safety from a car roof.

One "obscene" memory Lt Cdr Florry Ford has is seeing how the cows reacted to fish washing up in their field.

"At one point as we were coming into land, you could see cows licking trout. The farm had flooded and sadly, all of these trout washed into the field with the cows staring at them. It was just obscene things which you never see, you hopefully will never see again."

Now retired, the former Lt Cdr said he "cannot believe" there were no fatalities and spent the following weeks tracking the news expecting to hear somebody had been found.

Today however, he does not feel confident the UK's search and rescue operation is as well equipped for this kind of mission.

"At the time there were five out the 20 allocated Search and Rescue assets involved, a total of seven aircraft, but these extra two came from Culdrose and St Mawgan."

"That was 25% of the UK SAR capability. We've now got only ten bases, so seven aircraft is 70%. It wouldn't leave us a lot of flex for anything else that was happening around the UK."