THE LIFE-BOAT FLEET 153 Motor Life-boats 1 Harbour Pulling Life-boat LIVES RESCUED from the foundation of the Life-boat Service in 1824 to July 31st, 1951 ....

77,419 Gallant Life-boatmen of Flamborough The Rescue of an Injured Boy ABOUT four o'clock on the 15th of May, Flamborough life-boat launched. She had been told that a boy had fallen into the sea from the top of the 150 foot cliffs between the life-boat station and Flamborough Head; and a quarter of an hour later she indeed saw him, still alive, lying on a ledge of rock where the heavy swell breaking against the foot of the cliffs had swept him. It was raining heavily, and the tide was on the ebb.

The life-boat could not get nearer to him than eighty yards, among the rocks; and the sea was too rough to use a coble. So the second coxswain, Albert E. Duke, not a strong swimmer, volunteered to swim with a rope; but he got into difficulties and had to be hauled back.

The Mechanic Volunteers The motor mechanic, PL A. Slaugh- ter, a powerful swimmer, then volun- teered. With a rope secured to him, he reached a flat-topped rock twenty yards from the boy; here he hauled in the breeches buoy and coiled a line on it. He then waded shoulder deep to the ledge, carrying an end of the line. But when he reached the ledge, he found the boy so badly injured, and in such pain (besides weak from loss of blood), that it was impossible to send him to the life-boat by breeches buoy. He would have to go up the cliff in a stretcher.

Slaughter thereupon waded back to his rock and shouted this information to the coxswain, who asked by radio telephone for a doctor and ambulance to be sent to the top of the cliff. A stretcher was lowered, and with the help of two boys, D. Woodhouse and A. Major, who had climbed down the cliff, and J. Waines of the rocket life- saving apparatus, who had been lowered down, the motor mechanic strapped the boy into the stretcher and he was hauled up. Mr. Waines was hauled up at the same time to guide the stretcher over obstructions, and they soon reached the cliff-top in safety.

By 6.15 the life-boat was back at her station.

The Institution has awarded its bronze medal to motor mechanic Edward A. Slaughter, and its thanks on vellum to Second Coxswain Albert E. Duke, for their bravery and resource.

These two men received an additional reward of £2 each; and scale rewards were IQs. to each member of the crew..