Bembridge, Isle of Wight.—At ten o'clock on the morning of the 12th of December, 1955, a doctor rang up the life-boat station to say that the keeper of St. Helen's Fort at Spithead was seriously ill. He asked if he could he taken to the fort to attend him.

At 10.20 the life-boat Jesse Lumb was launched with the doctor on board and made for the fort in a very rough sea.

There was a strong easterly breeze, and it was high water. After several attempts and with considerable diffi- culty the life-boat put the doctor on the fort. He later telephoned the life-boat station to say the patient must be moved by stretcher and asked for a helicopter to take him ashore.

At the request of the life-boat honorary secretary a helicopter took off from the Royal Naval Air Station at Lee- on-Solent. The aircraft landed on the fort, and with the life-boat standing by lifted the patient and the doctor. The helicopter then took them to a hospital in Newport, and because of the weather the life-boat made for Cowes, which she reached at three o'clock. The life-boat was taken back to her station on the 14th.—Rewards to the crew,£14; rewards to the helpers on shore, £3 5s..