JANUARY 9TH. - HOYLAKE, CHESHIRE.

At about 10 A.M. the Hooton R.A.F. aerodrome asked the coastguard to search the banks with their telescope for signs of a missing aeroplane, which had not returned the previous evening. News then came that aeroplanes had seen four men in a rubber dinghy in the estuary of the River Dee.

At 10.37 A.M. a request was received for the life-boat crew to assemble, and at 11 A.M.

came a request for her to launch. A strong S.E. breeze was blowing with a choppy sea and it was very cold. The motor life-boat Oldham was launched at 12.10 P.M. and a quarter of a mile N. by E. of Dee Buoy she found the dinghy with four airmen on board.

The aeroplane had come down about 6 P.M.

the previous evening and the men were exhausted and suffering from exposure.

The life-boat took them and their dinghy on board and brought them ashore at 1.40 P.M.

A waiting R.A.F. ambulance took them to hospital. - Rewards, £10 4s. 6d..