NOTABLE FEATS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 87, 23 January 1942, Page 3

NOTABLE FEATS

MALAY RESCUE SERVICE. PILOTS SAVED AFTER CRASHES. 24-HOUR WATCH MAINTAINED. (United Press Association —Copyright.) LONDON. January 21. Formed a fortnight after the outbreak of War in the Pacific, the air-sea rescue service in Malay has already performed several notable feats of rescue work, says the Air Ministry News Kviee.

A shallow-draught marine tender twice rescued pilots who had baled out and reached an island near Singapore.' On one occasion no news had been received for some hours of British pilots shot down over a Dutch island south of Malaya. The tender was the only craft capable of exploring the shallow waters the islands and the creeks which cut across them. The tender’s crew landed and found a Dutch armed party searching for a crashed pilot who they believed was a Japanese. From other settlers the crew learned that the pilot had been found and taken to hospital by a British planter who organised a party of 200 and found the pilot after 11 hours’ search in the jungle. On another occasion the tender rescued a pilot from shallow waters oil tlie east coast of Singapore after half an hour’s immersion. Another pilot landed in the sea and swam to two islands which he found uninhabited, and then, almost exhausted, swam to a tlijrd island where he persuaded local Chinese to take him to another island with which the air-sea rescue service was in telephonic communication. Chinese similarly rescued a flight-lieutenant who crashed on a reef after shooting down a Japanese in flames. The air-sea rescue' service maintains a, 24-hour watch. Calls for help are handled immediately. The service is divided into three branches —aerial and marine. The sea fleet carries a full crash kit and medical equipment and the crews are trained in first-aid. The non-commissioned officer in charge is always a first-class coxswain.—British Official Wireless.