Many of the launches of life-boats have been to the help of airmen.

When the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston life-boat had been out to the rescue of a Hurricane fighter which had come down in the sea, the pilot's squadron leader wrote: "The speed with which your ship was launched and reached the spot was most gratifying to us and most reassuring to the pilots, who do such a lot of their work over the sea." A squadron leader who had been rescued by the Selsey life-boat wrote to the coxswain: "When you arrived I had given up hope of being picked up alive, and I doubt whether I could have lasted more than a few minutes. Your skill in finding me in that rough sea seems a miracle to me, and goes to prove that you and all your fellows in the Life-boat Service are doing a magnificent job of work.".