JULY 27TH - 28TH. - PORTPATRICK, WIGTOWNSHIRE. Shortly after six in the evening the coastguard telephoned that an aeroplane had crashed on the foreshore at Cairngarrock Bay. The weather was fine, with a slight north-north-west breeze and a calm sea. The motor life-boat Jeanie Speirs was launched at 6.25 and, with her boarding boat in tow and the honorary secretary, Mr.

James Welsh, on board, she left for Cairngarrock Bay. There she found that a Dakota air ambulance, bound from France for Prestwick on her way to America, had struck the cliffs, only forty feet high, as she came in from the sea. She had twenty-two persons on board, including American wounded soldiers and two nurses. The foreshore was littered with their bodies. Only one man was still alive. The life-boat called by wireless for a doctor and her crew made every effort to succour the man, but he died. The scene of the accident was inaccessible by land, and it was decided to attempt to remove the bodies by sea. The life-boat returned to her station at 10.45 to collect rubber dinghies and other equipment, but owing to the darkness and fog it was decided to attempt no more that night. On the following day the life-boat, in two more trips, carried the twenty-two bodies to Portpatrick.

Leaving at 1.30 in the afternoon on the first trip she returned at 5.15, and leaving again at 5.45 she finally returned at 8.15 that evening.

The R.A.F. expressed its thanks for the efficient way in which everything had been done. - Rewards, £22 5s. 6d.