The Life-boat appears again after an absence of just seven years. Its last number was dated April, 1940. In that month Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. At the end of the next month the British Expeditionary Fotce was brought off from the beaches of Dunkirk (nineteen of the Institution's life-boats aiding in the work), and the British Isles awaited invasion. It was apparent what scarcities there would be in these besieged islands, what strict economies were needed; and the Committee of Management voluntarily decided at once, as the Institution's help in economizing paper, to suspend this journal (which used over eighteen tons a year) and drastically to reduce the annual report, both in size and in the number of copies printed.

These economies have continued until the present time. But the news of the work of the Life-boat Service was still regularly distributed to its branches and workers in the briefest possible form. In September, 1940, the first number of The Life-boat War Bulletin appeared, a single sheet, printed by the Institution's own staff.

It was published every quarter, the last number appearing in December, 1946. Altogether 26 numbers and over 110,000 copies of it were printed. It was also possible to continue the illustrated annual, The Story of the Lifeboat, under the title of The Life-boat Serzice and the War.

In the annual report, reduced from over 200 pages to twenty-four, it was not possible to publish the usual accounts of the services of the life-boats, but later on a supplement to the annual report will be issued in which these accounts will be printed. With them will be lists of the men who won medals for gallantry, and the lists of services which used to appear in The Life-boat at the beginning of each year. Thus there will be no gap in the printed records of the work of the life-boat stations. The continuing difficulties in printing, from the scarcity both of men and materials, make it still impossible to fix a date for the publication of this supplement.

The Life-boat, though it can appear again, must be slimmer, not much more than half the size that it was before the war, and the number printed of each issue will for the present be less than half of what it was. But here it is again, and we may perhaps hope ihat it will be fully itself once more before it celebrates the centenary of its first number, published on March 1st, 1852..