JANUARY 1 8TH. - LERWICK, SHETLANDS.

At 12.37 in the afternoon the coastguard telephoned that a German aeroplane had bombed the Out Skerries Lighthouse, that one of the people on the lighthouse had been wounded, and that the patient ought to be taken immediately to hospital. A gale was blowing from the S.E., with a very rough sea, and no other boat was available.

At 1.24 in the afternoon the motor life-boat Lady Jane and Martha Ryland was launched, taking with her a doctor and two army officers from the Shetland Defence who wished to go to Skerries to examine the damage done by the bombing. The life-boat reached thelighthouse just after four in the afternoon and landed the doctor and the two officers.

At 5.30 in the evening they came on board again, bringing with them the patient, who was a woman of over 60, and two of her relatives. The life-boat then made for Vidlin.

On the way she sent a wireless message asking that a small boat might be ready to put out to meet her, and an ambulance waiting on shore. The life-boat arrived at Vidlin at about eight in the evening where the woman, the doctor and the two relatives were landed, and then returned to her station, arriving shortly before midnight. It was a difficult journey without any coast lights.

The woman died two days later. - Rewards.

£19 19s. 6d..