" So long as men shall continue to navigate the ocean, and the tempests shall hold their course over its surface, disasters by sea, shipwreck and peril to human life must inevitably take place." —SIR WILLIAM HILLARY, Bt.

The terrible storms which swept over the Atlantic in December and January recall these words of the Institution's founder. They were the most violent storms experienced for many years, and in writing of them in The Times, Sir Napier Shaw, the late Director of the Meteorological Office, pointed out that they bore a very close resemblance to the gales of the winter 1898-99, which were so violent that " a special inquiry was ordered." The climax, he wrote, was reached when the various disturbances " were co-ordinated in one vast cyclonic circula- tion some 2000 miles across, covering the North Atlantic from the north of Green- land to the Azores, and from Nova Scotia to the English Channel, and providing a westerly or south-westerly air current fully 1000 miles wide." What such a disturbance means is most graphically shown when he says that it" involved, or perhaps was caused by the removal of nearly two million tons of air from the area between 40 degrees and 60 degrees North and between 10 degrees and 60 degrees West " ; and Sir Napier Shaw concluded his article with an echo of Sir William Hillary's words, " We must expect still to find the Atlantic the scene of wrecks and their almost countervail- ing heroism unless we can develop still further our capacity to build invul- nerable ships." During these gales three vessels were lost in the Atlantic ; but in each case their wireless calls were answered and other vessels went to their help. Two of the three were British vessels, the s.s. Antinoe, of Leith, of 3748 tons, and the s.s. Lariston, of Newcastle, of 4293 tons. The third vessel was Dutch, the | s.s. Alkaid, of Rotterdam, of 3028 tons.

The German liner, Westphalia, of the Hamburg-Amerika line, picked up the Alkaid's signals in the early morning of 31st January, and reached her shortly : before noon of the following day—to j find her with engines stopped and the seas making a clean breach over her.

One of her hatches was open, the deck was split, all her life-boats were smashed, and the water in her stokehold had put I out the fires.

The Westphalia stood by her that day and the following night, and next morn- ing succeeded in sending a boat to her which took off her entire crew of twenty- seven men.

In the case of the Lariston it was again a German vessel which went to the rescue, the Bremen, of the North German Lloyd line. She picked up the signal in the afternoon of 25th January, and at 4.30 the next morning reached the Lariston. It was impossible to man a boat in the high seas, but a line was got across to the Lariston, and was fastened to a boat which her crew had succeeded in launching. Seven of the Lariston's crew got into this boat, but were swept overboard. The remaining six were got safely to the Bremen.

More ropes were fired to the Lariston and two got across, but when night came no more of her crew had attempted to leave her. The Bremen stood by all night, and when day broke the Lariston had disappeared, with twenty-three of her crew.

In these two services German vessels rescued thirty-three Englishmen and Dutchmen. Two months earlier, Eng- lish, Irish and Belgian Life-boats (as recounted elsewhere in this issue) had rescued eighty German lives. Could there be a better epitome than that of the spirit of comradeship of the sea ? The third of these three steamers, the Antinoe, found her rescuer in the American liner President Roosevelt.

This was a longer and still fiercer struggle, and will certainly be remem- bered as one of the epic stories of the sea.

It was on 24th January that the President Roosevelt reached the Antinoe, which lay disabled, with a list of 10 degrees, and was shipping heavy seas.

The struggle to rescue her crew lasted for nearly four days. During that time the President Roosevelt lost six life-boats and used all her small ropes; and, unfortunately, she lost two of her gallant crew, at the first attempt at rescue, when the life-boat was flung back against the ship's side and all her crew were spilt into the water. When at last the Presi- dent Roosevelt's boat got alongside and the twenty-five men of the Antinoe were able to jump aboard her they were " exhausted from loss of sleep and nourishment and exposure to the snow." The Antinoe herself had a list of 40 degrees, her lee bridge deck rail was level with the water; the sea was washing over continuously, and at any moment she might have gone down or capsized.

Such is, in brief, the story of this great rescue.

The crew of the Antinoe were landed at Plymouth, and when the President Roosevelt touched at Southampton from Bremen, a few days later on her return voyage to New York, she was met by the President of the Board of Trade, Sir Philip Cunlifle-Lister, who thanked Captain Fried and his crew, in the name of the King, and made presentations to him, his officers and the men who had manned the President Roosevelt's life- boats, in recognition of their great gallantry. In making these presenta- tions Sir Philip Cunlifle-Lister said :— "It is the wish of the King that I should present to the officers and men who manned the boats the Foreign Service Gold Medal for Saving Life at Sea, and that I should place in your keeping, Captain Fried, the presentation to their relatives of the medals that would have been awarded to the two gallant men who gave their lives.

" On behalf of the Government I have to ask you, whom duty kept on the bridge, to accept a special token of their recognition of the fine seamanship, humanity, and courageous resource which, throughout these nights and days, characterized your every action." Captain Fried has also been decorated by the President of the United States with the Navy Cross.

The following telegram was sent to Captain Fried from the Institution, signed, by Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt., Chairman of the Committee of Manage- ment, and by Mr. George F. Shee, M.A., Secretary of the Institution :— " The Royal National Life-boat Insti- tution wishes to convey to you and the officers and crew of the President Roosevelt, its warm appreciation for the courage, tenacity and humanityd is- played by them in their splendid efforts to rescue the crew of the Antinoe, to congratulate them on their complete success, and to express sympathy with the loss of two gallant men. This Institution, a voluntary society, which for 100 years has provided and main- tained the Life-boat Service on the coasts of the British Isles, recognizes in the action of the rescuers the qualities of the typical Life-boatman, exercised in the spirit of the COMRADESHIP OF THE SEA." 2nd February, 1926.