A LONG SEARCH Margate, Kent, and Walton-on-the- Naze, Essex.—At 2.50 in the after- noon of the 24th of May, 1947, the coastguard telephoned that the Ameri- can steamer John Lefarge had reported that she had collided with and sunk a fishing boat, the Oceanic II, of Ostend, about twenty-four miles north-east of North Foreland. She asked for help in a search for survivors. The Margate motor life-boat The Lord Southborough, Civil Service No. 1, was launched at 3.25 in a light south-south-west breeze and calm sea, and the. Walton and Frinton motor life-boat, E M.E.D., at 3.30. Both life-boats carried out an extensive search in which, later, they were joined by aeroplanes, and the E.M.E.D. found a capsized dinghy, with two men clinging to it, four and a quarter miles south south-east of the Galloper Light-vessel, and rescued them.

One of them was exhausted and the life- boat made at once for her station, arriving at 2.15 the following morning.

Three more men were said to be in the water about five miles east by south of the light-vessel and the Margate life-boat continued the search. She found wreckage, and spoke several vessels, one of which had picked up a waterlogged boat of the Oceanic II, but there was no trace of the three men.

At 11.10 at night the life-boat returned to the light-vessel and was told that it had received a message recalling her.

She arrived at her station at three o'clock next morning. Rewards, Margate, £27 135.; Walton and Frinton, £28 5s..