AU G U S T 2 2 N D . - D A V I D ’ S , P E M - BROKESHIRE. At 11.35 A.M. the coastguard reported a vessel in distress two miles westward of the Smalls Lighthouse. Permission to launch, was got from the naval authorities, and the motor life-boat Civil Service No. 6 put out at 12.40 P.M. Dr.

Joseph Soar, Mus. Doc., the honorary secretary of the station, went with the boat.

The sea was rough, with a fresh N.W.

breeze blowing. The life-boat kept in communication with the Smalls Lighthouse by wireless, and the lighthouse gave her a course, as the vessel in distress, which had sent out an S.O.S., had by now completely disappeared. After going some three miles the life-boat saw a jacket on a pole, and found that it was a signal from survivors on a raft. They were from the S.S. Thorold, of Montreal, a Canadian Lake boat, now owned in Newcastle. She was bound with coal from Cardiff to London, and had been attacked by three German bombers, which, after they had wrecked her, circled round machinegunning her crew. The life-boat made straight for the raft, but before she reached it she found the master of the Thorold clinging to a plank. He was badly hurt and in a state of collapse. Two of the life-boatmen, D. Lewis and G. Davies, went into the sea and helped the master into the life-boat.

Then the life-boat found the second engineer on a piece of wreckage, and finally reached the raft from which the thirteen remaining survivors of the Thorold's crew of 24 were rescued. The life-boat made straight for home and on her way asked by wireless, through the Smalls Lighthouse, that doctors and ambulances should be ready when she arrived. Two of the rescued men, however, had died before the life-boat reached shore.

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