BRONZE MEDAL SERVICE AT ST. DAVID’S FEBRUARY 28TH. - ST. DAVID’S, PEMBROKESHIRE. At 9.20 in the evening the police telephoned to the life-boat station that a man was trapped somewhere up the cliffs near Llanunwas, Solva. The honorary secretary suggested that the coastguard should also be told, and its lifesaving apparatus called out, but as he thought that it would probably be impossible for it to rescue the man from the top of the cliffs, he decided to send out the life-boat, taking the boarding boat with her, to see what could be done from the bottom of the cliff.

The motor life-boat Civil Service No. 6 was launched at 10.35. The honorary secretary, Dr. Joseph Soar, Mus. Doc., went with her. The weather was calm. She arrived off the cliffs near Solva village at 11.30. The cliffsthere are more than 200 feet high.

The life-boat had to remain 500 yards from the bottom of them. She could get no nearer owing to the rocks and the swell. The second-coxswain, D. J. Lewis, and one of the crew, went in the boarding boat sufficiently near to find the man. He was on a ledge about forty feet up. He could get neither up nor down.

The second coxswain returned to say that it was impossible to get up the cliffs to the ledge from the shore.

There was nothing to do but try to climb down the cliffs, and one of the crew, Gwilym Davies, volunteered to try it. The second-coxswain, Gwilym Davies and Dr. Soar then went ashore in the boarding boat.

It was not easy to find a place to land in the darkness and surf, among the huge stones at the foot of the cliffs, but the second-coxswain handled the boarding boat skilfully, and she came ashore without mishap. Gwilym Davies then found a place where he could climb up the cliff. At the top were the coastguard, with the lifesaving apparatus, and they lowered him down above the ledge where the man was trapped.

While Davies was climbing the cliff, Dr. Soar and the second-coxswain returned to the life-boat, got her signalling lamp and came ashore again. Below the ledge the sea ran into a cleft in the cliffs, and from the water in the middle of this cleft rose a rock. As it was impossible, from the shore below, to throw the light of the signalling lamp on to the ledge, Dr.

Soar climbed this rock and from its top was able to shine it on the man.

By this light he directed Davies as he was being lowered to the ledge.

Davies and the rescued man were then lowered still further until they were able to swing themselves on to the rock beside Dr. Soar, and from there they all three climbed down into the boarding boat. All this had been done in pitch darkness, except for the light of the signalling lamp.

Meanwhile the boarding boat below, with the second-coxswain on board her, had been in danger from the swell which was increasing as the tide rose. It was now 1.30 in the morning,two hours after the life-boat had arrived off the cliff. The boarding boat came safely out to the life-boat again, and the life-boat arrived back at her station at 2.30.

The Institution made the following awards : To GWILYM DAVIES, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum, and £2 in addition to the ordinary reward on the standard scale of £1 17s. 6d. ; To DR. JOSEPH SOAR, Mus. Doc., the honorary secretary of the station, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To DAVID J. LEWIS, second-coxswain, the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum, and £1 in addition to the ordinary scale reward on the standard scale of £1 17s. 6d. ; To POLICE SERGEANT EVANS, who rang up the life-boat station, a letter of appreciation ; To the coxswain and to each of the four other members of the crew a reward of 10s. in addition to the ordinary scale reward on the standard scale of £1 17s. 6d. ; Standard rewards to crew and launchers, £11 15s. 6d. ; additional rewards to crew, £5 10s. ; total rewards, £17 5s. 6d..