Hastings, Sussex, and Dungeness, Kent.—At 9.29 P.M. on the 9th September, 1939, the coastguard at Fairlight reported that an aeroplane had come down in the sea a mile to the east. The weather was clear and the sea was calm. At 9.35 the Dungeness life-boat station was told by the observer post at Dungeness that an aeroplane had come down in the sea about seven miles W.S.W. of Dungeness.

At 9.40 Mr. R. Cooke, volunteerin- charge of the life-saving corps at Pett, was told that an aeroplane had come down about one and a half miles south of Pett. The Hastings life-boat, Cyril and Lilian Bishop, was launched at 9.47 P.M. ; the Dungeness motor lifeboat, Charles Cooper Henderson, at 9.45 P.M. Mr. Cooke called for a crew to man his motor boat, and put out with three men. He was the first to find the aeroplane. Her crew, four in number, were on the top of the machine..

Mr. Cooke landed them at Pett. At 10.40 the Hastings life-boat found the aeroplane, abandoned by her crew, andt towed it into Hastings, arriving at, 1.30 A.M. The Dungeness life-boat: cruised about, using her searchlight,, for an hour and a half, but found notrace of the aeroplane. Later she: learned from a destroyer that the crew had been saved, and returned to her station, arriving at 1 A.M.—Rewards: Hastings, £28 14s. 6d.; Dungeness, £22 2s.; the four men who manned the motor boat, £2, and 5s. for the use of the boat..