St. Peter Port, Guernsey. At 8.55 on the morning of the 23rd of May, 1959, a message was received from the signal station that the local fishing boat Happy Return with a crew of two had left harbour at noon on the previous day and had not returned. As the boat had been expected to return on the evening of the 22nd an extensive search was organised. Vessels in the area were asked by radio-telephone to keep a look-out for the boat and aircraft were alerted. The life-boat Euphrosyne Kendal left her moorings at 9.44 and in conjunction with a Shackleton aircraft carried out a search south and west of Guernsey, for the Happy Return had last been seen two miles south-east of Sark. H.M.S. Redpole searched the northern area. The life-boat found nothing and was recalled at dusk, reaching her station at 11.15. At one o'clock on the following afternoon a message was received from Jersey radio station that the tanker Regent Royal, on passage to Trinidad, had picked up the two fishermen from the Happy Return, which had been found adrift approxi- mately 40 miles south-west of Guernsey.

The help of the life-boat was asked to land the two men, and the life-boat put out at 1.43. She met the tanker twelve miles west of Hanois lighthouse and the two fishermen were transferred to the life-boat, which landed them at St.

Peter Port at 7.45. First service : rewards to the crew, £27 13s. ; reward to the helper on shore, £1 5s. Second service : rewards to the crew, £14 5s. ; reward to the helper on shore, 18s..