"HAMPSHIRE" MYSTERY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 161, 2 April 1919, Page 7

"HAMPSHIRE" MYSTERY

WARRANT OFFICER'S STORY OF THE LOST SKIP KITCHENER NOT SEEN

The loss of H.M.S. Hampshire, witb Lord Kitchener and his staff on board, in .Tune, 1910, Ims been one of tho great mysteries of the war. Questions have been ashed in Parliament and in tho Press, and a, report was presented by the Naval Comuiitleo which investigated tho disaster, but until recently no detailed account of it has been published". Tho following story of the loss of tho vessel has' now, however, been told to the London correspondent of the. "Manchester Guardian" by a warrant officer who was Raved from (he wreck :—

IOf.S. Hampshire, four days after the Jutland Battle, in which, my informant said, she sank a light cruiser and a submarine, took Lord Kitchener aboard on Juno 5, 1916, above live in the evening, and set out with 800 souls in the foulestweather known in that region. She had two escorting destroyers, which soon returned to port, as they wore unable to face the storm. Everything aboard was lashed down, and only one hatchway' was open. My informant was watch below.

At about eight o'clock a terrible explosion took place forward', and there was a scramble for the compnnibu. A largo number of the crew were young and now bauds, and there was a. good deal of hurry. How my informant got on deck he did not know. When ho got thoro tho officers were at their posts, but the orders could not be heard owing to the fury of the storm and the escape of the steam, All the lights wont out at the moment of the explosion (of which there seemed to be two;, and this added to the confusion. When be got on deck ho and another hand proceeded to cut the lashings of tho life-rafts on deck. There was no attempt to launch boats, which could hover have lived in tho sea that was running, Tiro rafts were, however, launched, and tho one on which my informant stood went over tho side 1 and turned upside down. Ho had hold' and got into the righted craft, which ho praised very highly. Most of tho others also got in, 'about eighty in all.

No Sign of Lord Kitchener. Thorc was no sign of Lord Kitchener, and he thought that he probably never got on deck. (This differs from a report at the time of Lord Kitchener having bcoa seen on deck.) There was not five minute between tho explosions and llm disappearance of the ship. Ho iiad tried and failed to open other hatchways, ami he thinks that the crowd at the single, one at which he emerged may have blocked many people from getting on deck. The raft drifted before the galo for over five hour.i, when by an extraordinary ehaueo they passed through a rocky entrance ami wero beached on an island whose name he had forgotten. By that lime of dm SI) on the raft many had been washed off, and of the rest all but four had died and had fallen into tho net in llu middle of the raft. On reaching shore my informant scrambled out and found himself among the rucks. Ifo scrambled up tho rocks with great difficulty, tearing off his nails, and evontuallv,. with .oiio other man, got to.tho top about half-past four in the morning. There he found a shed, and lie spied ;> moving His companion went after it, and found a farmer going about in search of cattle. With the aid of soma farm folk the four survivors, who lad been taken'to ■llio farmhouse, wore well looked after. In all them were twelve survivors, two on a second and six en a third raft, blown ashore two or threo miles from his landing-place. During the war the British Bed Crescent Society has spent £K3l in. relief work for Moslem sufferers.

Mous. .lacoues l.ebaudy, tho so-called "Emperor of the Sahara," has been shot dead by Ms wife at Lons Island. An expedition to the North-West Coast of Africa, for tho purpose of founding an "empire," though resulting in little else than ridicule, won notoriety in 1902-3 for this eccentric Frenchman,