The last that the Institution heard of its life-boats in Jersey and Guernsey before the Germans captured the Channel Islands was on June 29th. 1940. They had been ordered to sail for Cowes, but that afternoon Jersey telephoned that the governor would like to keep the life-bo it. The Institution agreed. It heard nothing more for three years. Then in June 194.3 a cryptic message came from Jersey, on a printed form of the German Red Cross, from which the Institution knew that the boat was at her station and seaworthy. Again nothing was heard for two years until the war in Europe was ended..