IT WAS a splash for the Daily Echo – and he made a mighty one himself when he dived overboard from a celebrated transatlantic liner.

It was the adventure of a lifetime for young Lewis Jones, who climbed commando-style aboard the Berengaria on a rope securing her to the quayside at Southampton and later spectacularly dived overboard as she was about to dock at Cherbourg.

The authorities, however, were less than impressed and threatened to have the 16-year-old prosecuted as a stowaway. The Daily Echo today goes back more than 80 years to when Lewis Jones yearned to escape his humdrum job as a commis waiter at a Scarborough hotel for a life at sea.

“I thought I would like to become a ship’s steward,” he told an Echo reporter, reliving his remarkable story as he produced a typed reference that lauded him as being “very willing, steady, reliable and most conscientious”.

“So I came to Southampton but couldn’t find one and became desperate. I was hungry and dirty and thought if I could get on one of the big liners, they would find me something to do.”

So late at night, in late September 1931, he slipped into the port and clambered up a mooring rope at the rear of the White Star Line flagship, crept along the deck and dropped down to a hold where he found props belonging to a theatrical company going to New York.

There he remained for three days until starvation and thirst drove him out and he entered the first cabin he saw – that of a steward who immediately took him to an officer.

But he was very understanding. “He was very decent about it, in fact they were all jolly good,” he smiled.

But when the Berengaria reached New York, his adventure temporarily ended. He was put on a tug and taken to Ellis Island, where he was detained in a large room with 500 other men for five days.

“Actually, it’s not the rotten place I have heard some people say. I was treated all right but there was no freedom.”

Daily Echo:

The Berengaria

A detective then took him back to the Berengaria, but on an unexpected rather circuitous route that enabled him to glimpse skyscrapers and take a ride on the elevated railway.

Security was considerably more strict on the return voyage, with the youth kept in third class, but as the liner neared the French coast, Jones craftily gave the crew the slip and reached the boat deck.

France looked inviting, so he dived overboard – with almost fatal results. “The sea was rougher than it looked from the boat deck, and although I am a good swimmer, I couldn’t make any headway against the current.”

In desperation, he pulled off his overcoat and was still losing the struggle to remain afloat when by chance a local pilot boat saw him floundering and pulled him aboard.

“I don’t remember much about it and I found myself back on the Berengaria once more – this time in the ship’s hospital. They were very kind to me and soon had me feeling OK.”

However, when she finally docked in Southampton, the teenager was detained and taken to the local police station to be interviewed and charged.

However, the authorities relented and Jones was put on a London-bound train to return to Yorkshire, where his much-relieved parents waited to meet him.