Southend-on-Sea, Essex.—At 8.22 on the morning of the 22nd of December, 1954, the coastguard rang up to say that a barge was driving towards the boom defence off Shoeburyness. At 8.50 the life-boat Greater London, Civil Service No. 3 was launched. The sea was rough, and a moderate gale was blowing from west-north-west. The life-boat made for the position in a flooding tide and found the garbage lighter Gerrard and two D.U.K.W.

amphibious craft on the boom a mile from Shoeburyness. Four men who had been in" the D.U.K.W.'s had boarded the lighter, and the life-boat towed the lighter and the D.U.K.W.'s clear of the'boom. The D.U.K.W.'s were then taken ashore, and the life- boat towed the Gerrard to Shoebury- ness, reaching her station again at 11.45.—Property Salvage Case..