St. Peter Port, Guernsey: and Torbay, Devon.—At 5.40 in the evening of the 4th of August, 1950, it was reported to the St. Peter Port life-boat authorities that the S.S. Charlotte Schroder, of Hamburg, had had a boiler explosion, severely burning several people. She was thirty-three miles north-west of Guernsey. At 6.8 the life-boat Queen Victoria, accompanied by Captain F.

Nicolle, the honorary secretary, left her moorings in a slight swell with a light westerly breeze blowing. Mean- while the s.s. Delfland, of Amsterdam, had taken off three men; and about eight o'clock a speed-boat, which had put out from Guernsey, with a doctor, ambulance men and the life-boat cox- swain, arrived alongside the Delfland.

Eventually the life-boat went along- side too, and the injured men were taken aboard. She then returned to Guernsey with them and two doctors, the ambulance men, and a man from the speed-boat; reaching her station again at 12.15 the next morning. The Torbay life-boat George Shee, which had been at Dartmouth for a life-boat flag day on the 4th, was informed of the explosion by the Brixham coastguard eight minutes after the St. Peter Port life-boat. She left Dartmouth at 6.15, with a doctor on Iward; but her services were not required and she returned to Dartmouth at 11.8 that night. Here she landed the doctor, and reached her station again at 12.20 in the morning of the 5th.—Rewards, St. Peter Port, £13 Is.; Torbay, £9 5s. 6d..