THE Goodwin Sands have earned over and over again their grim description as '; the graveyard of ships." In them are sunk the timbers of hundreds of ships and the bones of thousands of seamen.

At low tide men have played cricket on the Goodwins and have cycled on them, but such acts of familiarity leave them unchanged as the greatest menace to ships in the waters of the British Isles.

For many years the North Deal lifeboat station, the nearest to the Goodwins, was the most famous of all lifeboat stations. When it was closed in 1932, its life-boats had rescued in its fifty-seven years 859 lives. There have been altogether three stations opposite the Goodwins — Kingsdown, North Deal, and Walmer. Now there is only Walmer, chosen as having the best beach for launching a motor life-boat.

These three stations, from 1865 to the end of 1946, had rescued 1,646 lives.

In recent years, other dangerous parts of the coast have disputed the evil preeminence of the Goodwins, but since the war ended and the Straits of Dover and the entrance to the Thames were free again to all shipping, the Goodwins have reasserted themselves and Walmer; has been the busiest life-boat station on our coasts. In the past twentyfive months (from the end of the war on May 8th, 1945), the Walmer life-boat has gone out to the help of twenty-one ships caught by the Goodwins.

Only one of those ships was British, a 7,000-ton steamer, and she got off the Sands. Ten were from European countries—three Swedish, two Dutch, one French, one Danish, one Spanish, one Greek, and one Polish. From these ships the Walmer life-boat rescued forty lives. The other ten ships were all American, and Walmer rescued from them ninety-two lives. Altogether, the Walmer lifeboat has rescued from the Goodwins in these twentv-five months 132 lives.