JULY 9TH. - SALCOMBE, AND TORBAY, DEVON. At 7.10 P.M. the Prawle Point Signal Station reported that a vessel was being bombed by enemy aeroplanes three or four miles away. A fresh S.W. wind was blowing, but the sea was smooth. At 7.30 P.M.

the Salcombe motor life-boat Samuel and Marie Parkhouse was launched. A motor boat, manned by three men, was also sent out from Lannercombe, as the vessel was sinking fast. The motor boat reached the vessel first, and found her to be the steamer Talvaldis, of Riga. She had not only been bombed, but had been repeatedly machinegunned, and one of her crew had been killed.

The rest abandoned ship. The motor boat rescued six of them from a raft and then stood by the steamer’s boat, with six more men on board, which was water-logged.

When the life-boat arrived at 8.45 P.M., she rescued the six men from the water-logged boat ; took on board all the men from the motor boat ; and then towed the motor boat to Lannercombe. She arrived back at her station at 10 o’clock.

News of the attack on the steamer was also sent to Torbay, and the motor life-boat George Shee put out at 7.39 P.M. On her way she passed the Dutch motor vessel Jola, which had also been attacked. She was making for Dartmouth with three of her crew wounded by machine-gun bullets. The George Shee arrived at the scene of the attack on the Talvaldis to find that the men had been rescued, and returned to her station, arriving at midnight. - Rewards, Salcombe, £10 15s. ; Torbay, £9 ; the three men in the shoreboat, 10s. each and 6s. for fuel used.

(See Lannercombe, Salcombe, “ Services by Shoreboats “, page 146.).