Lifeboats keep their rescue role in war

What was the RNLI's role during wartime?

It remained a rescue service, recovering people such as downed pilots and convoy survivors when it could do so safely.

Lifeboats continued their peacetime rescue function rather than becoming a wholly different wartime service. Boats not called up could go out for downed pilots or ships lost around coastal convoys, where ordinary convoy vessels could not always stop to recover survivors.