HIDEOUS CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 227, 24 September 1940, Page 7

HIDEOUS CRIME.

PRESS COMMENT. Hand Of Murder Readies Out To Strike Children. British Official Wirelecs. (Reed. 11 ajn.) RUGBY, Sept. 23. Horrified condemnation is expressed in all quarters to-day of the German submarine's sinking in mid-Atlantic' without warning on a bitter stormy \ night of the ship carrying children from vulnerable areas to Canada. The " Timee " says:—" Another hideous German crime makes deeper the hue of Hitter'e infamous warfare. Not even the daily and nightly occurrence in Hitlers programme of the merciless and indiscriminate war descent of his aerial torpedoes in residential areas to blast people from their homes, nor any of the other examples of Nazi terrorism, can deaden sensitiveness of feeling to this atrocity of a torpedo launched through dark and tempestuous seas."

The "Daily Telegraph" eays that to realise facts is to feel compassion for the victims infused with burning indignation against the perpetrators of so foul an outrage against every humane instinct.

The "Daily Mail," after remarking that the crime stands out as a supreme instance of horror, adds that on eea as on hind the hand of murder reaches out to strike children.

Among the messages received by the authorities to be passed on to relatives of the children lost is one from the Australian Prime Minister, Mr. R. G. Menzies: " This latest exhibition of eavagery by the Nazis," he said, "will steel the British people in their resolve to count no sacrifice too great in defeating the dark spirit for which the Nazi regime stands.* .

The survivors included a New Zealander, Mrs. Lillian Rose Towns, who wae an official escort. She was a schoolmistress in Xew Zealand, where ehe married Mr. F. G. Towns, an optician, of Clapham, says a cable message. Mr. and Mrs. Towns came to England three years ago. They bad arranged to evacuate their daughter to New Zealand.

"Mother, my brother and I were on the same raft with one of the ship's engineers, and were the laet to get away," said a nine-year-old girl survivor. "We were the only party in which everyone was saved. For some hours we were tossed about. When we stood up we were blown down again by the terrific wind. My mother and I were worried about my sister, but she turned up in a warship. ,.

A woman who believes that ehe was the laet to le,ave the ehip said ebe put two of her three children on a raft. It floated clear, and then she jumped and managed to land on it. Later her 11-year-old daughter was washed off, but a man put her back again on the raft. The third child was also saved.

This survivor paid a tribute to the courage of Mr. Eric Davis, who was on his way to Singapore. " The liner was heeling over and it looked ae if she would fall on «P, n she eaid. " Mr. Davis, swimming with one arm, pushed the raft clear just in time."