JUNE 28 TH . - ST, PETERPORT, GUERNSEY, On 26th of June the honorary secretary at St Helier, Jersey, telephoned to the Institution that he was unable to get a crew to take his life-boat to Cowes, which it had been arranged that he should do, if the Germans prepared to occupy the Channel Islands. The chief inspector then telephoned to St. Peter Port, Guernsey, where the honorary secretary was holding the life-boat ready to leave for England at half-an-hour’s notice, asking him to send the life-boat, the reserve boat, Alfred and Clara Heath, to tow the Jersey boat, Howard D., to Guernsey, in the hope that both might then be brought to England. The Guernsey boat was just arriving at St. Helier at 7 P.M. on 28th June, when German aeroplanes attacked both islands. One of the aeroplanes machinegunned the Guernsey life-boat and killed the son of the coxswain, Frederick Charles Hobbs, who was a member of the crew. The Guernsey boat then returned without the Jersey boat, and on the following day, 29th June, the honorary secretary telephoned to the Institution that the governor had asked that the life-boat should not leave Jersey. To this the chief inspector agreed. Rewards amounting to £32 8s. were granted. £7 10s. being paid locally at the time and the balance of £24 18s. sent from London in 1945 A letter was written to the honorary secretary at Guernsey on 29th of June to say that the dependent relatives of Harold P. Hobbs, the coxswain’s son, would be pensioned by the Institution, but no reply was received and nothing more was heard of either life-boat.

After the war it was learned that Harold Hobbs had left a widow and a small son, and that a pension had been paid by the States of Guernsey until June 1945. The Institution granted a pension to his widow and to her child as from the date of Hobbs’ death, on the scale laid down for sailors, soldiers and airmen killed in action.

The two life-boats fell into the hands of the enemy. The St. Helier boat was used by them as a life-boat on five occasions and rescued thirty-five lives. When the islands were freed the Institution had her overhauled and she continued her work at St. Helier. The St. Peter Port reserve boat was armed by the Germans and used as a fishing patrol boat. She was found to have been so mishandled that she was useless for further service..