TANKER ON FIRE Ramsgate, Kent.—At 7.27 in the morning of the 24th of May, 1947, the coastguard telephoned a message from the S.S. Newhall Hills, of San Francisco, that she was on fire to the southward of South Falls Buoy, the result of an ex- plosion after colliding with an unknown vessel, and that her crew were aban- doning her. The motor life-boat Pru- dential left her moorings at 7.45 in a calm sea and no wind. She found the Newhall Hills, a tanker of 10,441 tons, three miles north-east of the buoy. Her No. 1 and No. 2 tanks had blown up, killing a man, and the crew were fighting the fire. The life-boat stood by, but at 1.40 in the afternoon the bow and fore- mast of the tanker broke off. By this time her crew had got the fire under con- trol but the master asked the coxswain to continue to stand by and await the arrival of tugs. Five life-boatmen boarded the tanker. By two o'clock the tugs had not arrived and the cox- swain, at the master's request, went on board and gave the master his ship's approximate position for transmission to them. Shortly after three o'clock three tugs arrived and the life-boatmen helped to secure them. They then re-boarded the life-boat and she again stood by as the tugs made for Sheerness.

When they arrived off that harbour, during the night, the life-boat took a pilot aboard from a naval tug and transferred him to the tanker, which hove to until daylight on the 25th and was then towed to Sheerness and secured to a buoy at 8.45. At 9.55 the life-boat left for her station where she arrived at 3.5 in the afternoon, after a service lasting thirty-two hours.

-—Rewards £1. 8s.—-Property Salvage Case..