AT twenty minutes past eleven on the night of the 27th of September, 1951— a very dark night with heavy rain squalls—the coxswain of the Dover life-boat, when on his way along the Eastern Harbour Arm, on private busi- ness to the signal station at the end of it, saw a small yacht, the Akeco, of Amsterdam, anchored just outside the harbour arm. A strong southerly wind was blowing dead on shore; the yacht was anchored less than half a mile from the shore; and her anchor was dragging. The coxswain called out to the yacht "Hang on," and the answer came, several times repeated, "Yes, please." As he hurried back along the arm to call out the life-boat he could see that the yacht had already been carried half the short distance to the shore.

At quarter to twelve the life-boat Southern Africa put out without wait- ing for the last two men of her crew.

The wind was blowing against the ebbing tide, and wind and tide, and the rebound of the water from the cliffs and the harbour arm, had raised a very confused, violent and dangerous sea. The life-boat kept close to the harbour arm to avoid the worst of it.

When she reached the yacht, a minute after midnight, she found her little more than a hundred yards from the cliffs and nearly among the large boulders at their foot. Her cable had parted. She was broadside on to wind and sea. In a very little time she would be broken to pieces among the boulders.

By the light of his searchlight the coxswain turned the life-boat along- side her. There was only one man on board. He showed no inclination to jump, but signalled that he expected a line. This the bowman laid across him by a neat throw. With the life- boat stopped, and the two boats rolling ever closer to the shore, a tow rope was secured to the line and the man hauled it aboard and made it fast round the mast. The life-boat went ahead, gradually towed the yacht round, and then slowly drew her away from the shore. At half-past twelve they entered the harbour.

COXSWAIN JOHN WALKER had acted with great promptness from the moment when he saw the yacht and her danger, and had carried out the rescue with great speed and skill. The Institution awarded him its bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum.

It also gave him and each of the six members of his crew a reward of 25s. in addition to the reward on the ordinary scale of 15*. Scale rewards, £4; additional rewards, £7 10s.; total rewards, £11 10s..