Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
spent three years and five months at Macarthur's Head and over the next almost twenty
years he was posted to, in turn: Ardnamurchan, Tarbertness, Sule Skerry, Rhinns of
Islay and Stour Head. From his arrival at Stour Head, he was to spend five years and
five months there and during that time he was promoted to PLK on 1 October 1949.
From Stour Head he moved on to the Flannan Isles, arriving there on 4 June 1953, and
itwasduringhistimeonEilean Morthathespentmuchtimelookingdownonthewest
landingandouttosea,particularlyduringstormyweather.Whenthewaveswerepartic-
ularlylarge,hewouldplacehimselfinprecariouspositionstotakephotographs.Intotal
he took over thirty rolls of film. By the time he left the Flannan Isles, after spending
fouryearsandthreemonthsthere,Aldeberthadgivenaconsiderableamountofthought
towhathadhappenedtoDucat,MarshallandMacarthur.Hecameupwithacompletely
different theory to the standard one, long accepted, that all three men had gone down to
thewestlandingandhadbeensweptawaybyasinglegiantwave.Hisviewwasthatfor
a three-man station, one always had to remain within the station (certainly not always
adhered to) and that only Ducat and Marshall had gone down to the west landing on
15 December 1900 to check the box of ropes and tackle were still secure. Aldebert did
not believe the weather was storm force with corresponding wave sizes on that day, but
rather that there would have been a heavy swell with fairly large waves hitting the west
landing. He believed that Ducat and Marshall were checking the west landing and one
of them had lost his footing and fallen into the sea. Seeing his colleague in the swell,
the other probably felt it would be better to have two of them trying to get the third out
of the water. So either Ducat or Marshall (whichever of the two had not lost his footing
andfallen intothewater) probablyshoutedtowhoeverwasintheseathat hewasgoing
to get Macarthur to come and help him and ran back up the steps of the west landing
to the station and shouted to Macarthur to come and help him. Aldebert felt that this
would explain why Macarthur would have gone out in his shirtsleeves, as time would
have been of the essence. With the third man in the sea, the two would have gone down
as close as possible to try and get him out. Whilst they were doing this, a large wave
arrived and, before they had time to scramble clear, the other two men were swept into
the sea and all three drowned.
Aldebert put his theory into a report and, along with the thirty-plus rolls of film
he had taken of the sea and waves on the Flannans, he lodged them with the NLB
headquarters at 84 George Street. He moved onto St Abbs Head from the Flannan Isles
in 1957 and after spending eight years (the longest he spent at any station), his final
posting was Cromarty where he arrived on 6 September 1965 and spent two years and
eleven months, finally retiring on 30 September 1968. Walter Aldebert has now passed
away but his theory is probably a far better explanation of what actually happened to
Ducat, Marshall and Macarthur, and it was a theory developed over a number of years
