JANUARY 28TH. - WALTON AND FRINTON, ESSEX. During a south-westerly gale with a very rough sea H.M.S. Rhyl, a minesweeper, parted her tow from a tug off Felixstowe.

She anchored, but the anchors dragged and she was drifting towards a lee shore. The coastguard reported it at 10.45 at night, and a few minutes later the naval authorities at Harwich asked that the crew should be taken off. At 11.45 the motor life-boat E.M.E.D. was launched, and after a search found the minesweeper half a mile south of Felixstowe pier. The weather had improved a little and the officer-in-charge did not want to abandon ship, but on orders from Harwich the life-boat took him off and his thirty-five men and landed them at Harwich about 3.40 next morning. She returned to Walton at 11.15 that morning. The officerin- charge at Harwich expressed thanks for her excellent work. - Rewards, £33 10s. 6d..