Cromer, Norfolk.—At 10.40 in the morning of the 8th of July, 1948, the coastguard reported that the motor vessel Francois Tixier, of Dunkirk, bound from Goole for Rouen with a cargo of coal, was flying distress signals four miles north by west of Sheringham, and the No. 1 motor life-boat Henry Blogg was launched at eleven o'clock in a squally north-westerly gale with a very rough sea. She found that the motor vessel's cargo had shifted, and she had a heavy list. The list made it impossible for the life-boat to get along- side, so ropes were passed to her and the crew told to leave her as she could not last long in such weather.

They could speak no English but after much hesitation the captain of the Francois Tixier decided to abandon ship. By this time she was almost on her beam-ends and the rescue of her sixteen men was very difficult. With the aid of the breeches buoy the life- boat took off eleven. When the twelfth man was in the buoy, the ship rolled over and sank, flinging him and the four remaining men into the sea. They managed to clamber on to a raft and the life-boat picked them up. In that weather she could not return to Cromer and made for Gorleston, where she arrived at 6.30 in the evening.. Letters of thanks were received from the French Consul General through the French Consular Agent at Lowestoft and from the master of the vessel, and the French Minister of Mercantile Marine and the Minister for Foreign Affairs sent their "most lively congratulations" to the life-boat's crew. A gift of £100 was also made by the owners to the coxswain and crew.—Rewards, £50 13s. 6d..