OCTOBER 27TH. - SHERINGHAM, NORFOLK.

At 12.50 in the afternoon the landlord of the Crown Inn, on the sea front, was serving in his bar. The morning had been foggy, but at that moment the sun came through and as it did so the landlord glanced out of the window and saw a speck on the sea about two miles north of Sheringham.

He got his telescope on it, and saw that the speck was men on what looked like a raft.

Just then the second-coxswain of the lifeboat came in for his lunch-time glass of beer.

He went off at once with the news, and at 1.5 the motor life-boat Foresters Centenary was launched. A light W.N.W. wind was blowing, and the sea was rough, with a strong swell after a very heavy gale the day before.

The life-boat reached the “ speck ” twenty minutes later and found that it was a rubber dinghy with five airmen on board. They were all Poles, the crew of a Wellington bomber which had come down in the sea off the Wash at about 8.30 the night before in the gale. They had taken to their dinghy but, in the heavy seas, the sixth member of the crew had been unable to reach it and had been drowned. The other five men had been drifting and tossing in their dinghy in heavy seas for seventeen hours, soaked and sea-sick.

The life-boat crew rescued them, gave them rum, chocolate and biscuits from the emergency rations and brought them ashore, landing them at 2 P.M. A letter of thanks was received from the Directorate of Aircraft Safety. - Rewards, £19 16s. 6d..