COMMANDER PHILIP EDWARD VAUX, D.S.C., R.N., Chief Inspector of Life- boats, retired from the service of the Institution on the 30th of June of this year. He had been chief inspector since the 1st of January, 1939.

Commander Vaux was educated at the Royal Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and joined the Navy as a midshipman in 1913. During the war of 1914 to 1918, he took part in the actions at Heligoland and Dogger Bank, in the Battle of Jutland, and, as first lieutenant and navigating officer of H.M.S. Jphigenia, in the attack on Zeebrugge, where he won the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1919 he was in coastal motor boats with the North Russian Relief Force, and was mentioned in despatches. He retired from the Navy in 1920, at the age of 24 and entered the service of the Institution in March 1921 as inspector of life-boats for the Irish District.

He Wins the Bronze Medal In February, 1926, while he was serving in Ireland, two Welsh trawlers struck the rocks off the coast of Connemara and sank. The crew of the first got away in the ship's boat. The boat of the second was launched but broke loose. One of the crew jumped overboard, and swam to it, to be picked up later by a curragh. What had become of the rest of the crew was never known, but a piece of packing- case was washed up with the message "We three on a place called High Island shipwrecked at the entrance of Clifden Bay," and for over a week ships and aeroplanes were searching the islands. In this work Commander Vaux took part, getting together volunteer crews and searching four islands. One of them was the High Island, mentioned on the piece of packing-case. He landed on it from a curragh, a boat made of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. The weather was rough, the sea running yery high, and the island rocky and steep. He landed at great risk; one false step would have been fatal; and searched the eighty acres of the island.

But he found nothing alive except sheep and seals. For his leadership and courage in this search he was awarded the Institution's bronze medal for gallantry.

In the Eastern District Commander Vaux was transferred to the Eastern District in 1929, and in 1934 he was chosen by the Institution to go to Roumania to advise its govern- men which had decided to start a life- boat service. He remained in the Eastern District until he became chief inspector ten years later, but he had been chief inspector for less than a year when war was declared in September, 1939, and he was recalled at once to the Navy. He was in command of six anti-submarine traw- lers and then an anti-submarine train- ing base. He took part in the landing in North Africa and was appointed captain of the shore base at Bizerta.

He was serving in command of H.M.S.

Vindictive, a mobile destroyer repair ship in Malta, in the spring of 1944, when, at the urgent request of the Institution, he was released from the Navy and returned to the Life-boat Service.

Rebuilding of the Fleet The most urgent task of the return- ing chief inspector was to prepare plans for new boats to make up for the losses and delays of the war, that building might begin again as soon as possible after the war ended. To this work of rebuilding a large part of the fleet, Commander Vaux gave himself with great energy, and there is no type of life-boat on which he has not left his mark.

Before the war only the two largest types, the Barnett and the Watson Cabin, had diesel engines. Now all the six types of life-boat have them, with the greater radius of action andthe smaller risk of fire which diesel engines give. Commander Vaux pro- duced the first life-boats (of which there are now sixteen in the fleet) with a superstructure of aluminium alloy, which has made possible deck cabins.

He had the 41-feet beach and 41-feet Watson types redesigned with cabins, so that now four of the six types in the fleet are cabin boats. He installed a new system of wireless which can be used in the two open types of life-boat, as well as in the cabin boats, and intro- duced the loud hailer for communicat- ing with wrecks. In the seven years since his return to the Life-boat Service, thirty-seven of these re- designed life-boats (as well as ten of the older types) have been added to the fleet.

Much Travelled Commander Vaux was the most travelled of the Institution's chief inspectors. As district inspector he had gone to Roumania to advise its government. He also visited the Danish Life-boat Service. In his seven years as chief inspector after the war, he found time to visit and study the Life-boat Services in Holland where he went several times, France, Belgium, Norway. Sweden, Finland, Germany and Portugal..