AUGUST 7TH. - THE HUMBER, YORKSHIRE.

At 5.20 in the morning the lifeboat watchman saw a large bombing aeroplane come down on fire near the gate vessel.The sea was ablaze with burning petrol. The coxswain rang up the Royal Naval Shore Signal Station and was told that two steel boats had been ordered out to search for the aeroplane’s crew. Permission to launch the life-boat was refused until after the flames had begun to die down, as she was a wooden vessel. At 5.40 the life-boat put out, but found nothing except wreckage. The whole crew of the bomber, believed to be nine, had lost their lives, and four bodies were recovered by one of the patrol vessels. The coxswain of the station later had a talk with the naval officer in charge, and the naval officer agreed for the future to leave it entirely to the coxswain to decide whether or not it was advisable to launch the lifeboat.

- Paid permanent crew..