JUMPED INTO SEA

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 290, 5 September 1942, Page 7

JUMPED INTO SEA

New Zealander On The Eagle

(By Telegraph- ress Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.)

(Received September 4, 7 p.m.) LONDON, iSeptember 3.

The only New Zealander in the air-craft-carrier Eagle was 'Sub-Lieutenant 11. E. Duthie, of the Fleet Air Arm, who belongs to Epsom. He was 20 yards from the ship when she went down. He was wearing a Mae West life-jacket and swam for half an hour before being picked up by a destroyer.

Duthie said: “I had just gone down to my cabin to pick up my gear because I was about to begin a flight when four torpedoes hit the ship almost simultaneously with a terrific explosion. I remember my mirror breaking and then I dashed up to the flight deck because the ship listed heavily almost immediately. 1 waited for a while hoping the ship was not going to sink, but the list continued so I began to slide down a rope on the ship’s high

swinging over so rapidly that the lifeboat was lifted up from the water. "I jumped into tiie sea, which was oily but warm, and’ibcgan swimming as quickly as possible, remembering stories about suction, but there was no suction and I saw two men step off from tiie rudder as the Eagle sank and swim away,” Duthie was with the Eagle during a previous Malta-bound convoy when he w.as credited with shooting down 1} three-engined Savoi Maehottl bombers and probably another. “One morning two of us were patrolling when we saw two of these bombers,” lie said. “We got both, one going down in flames. I was with the same pilot that evening when we saw 17 Savoi Machettis flying in tight formation. We 'both attacked the rear aircraft and it went down flaming. The other pilot’s oil-tank was ■hit so he left and T used up the rest of my ammunition firing at another bomber and -saw its starboard engine burst into flames. Enemy fighters then ,so-J.lef b .quickly.”