136 LIVES LOST

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 20, 19 October 1942, Page 5

136 LIVES LOST

Canadian Ferry Sunk At Night U-BOAT WATCHES END (By Telegraph. —Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received October 18, 9.15 p.m.) SYDNEY (Nova Scotia), October 17. Torpedoed in darkness, the ferry steamer Caribou sank in Cabot Strait on October 14, with the loss of 136 lives. It was the greatest wartime marine disaster in Canadian coastal waters. Naval craft saved 100 of the passengers and crew. Servicemen, and- civilians, including women and children, perished in their bunks when an explosion shattered the, ship, which sank in a few minutes near the end of the overnight run from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. The U-boat surfaced after .the attack and watched the Caribou’s finish and the survivors struggling in the water. Rear Admiral Emery Land, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, told the American Merchant Marine conference that while new protective methods had reduced the toll taken by U-boats, the number of U-boats sunk was increasing month by month. The Blue Star Line announced yesterday thaj; one passenger and three of the crew, including one stewardess, were lost when the British liner Andalucia Star (14,943 tons) was torpedoed and sunk off Freetown, Sierra Leone. To rid so 'fine a ship of an unfortunate name, the Empress of Japan, the Canadian Pacific liner has been rechristened Empress of Scotland. Holder of all speed records for Pacific crossings, .the Empress of (Scotland has been transporting troops to all .parts of the globe since the outbreak of war. U-BOAT PACK FOILED Atlantic Convoy Gets Through (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 17. Though shadowed for four days by a U-boat pack, a large Atlantic convoy arrived, safely in Britain under the protection of the Royal Navy, the R.A.F. Coastal Command and United States Navy aircraft, which cooperated against the submarines so successfully that not one torpedo attack was delivered. The safe passage of the ships is regarded by the Air Ministry as an excellent illustration of the effectiveness of air cover combined with surface escort for ocean convoys and also as an indication of the increase in aircraft range and’ numbers over the Atlantic. Four New Ships a Day? An assurance that the United Nations could count on an average of four new United ‘States cargo phips a day by January was given by Admiral iH. L. Vickery, addressing an American merchant marine conference. He said that ■this was not the maximum potential shipyard capacity, and 24,000,0060 tons, deadweight, of new shipping would be delivered by the end of 1943. This figure could be substantially exceeded if the necessary materials were available. “Though we still have a long way to go before we have enough ships for victory,” he said, “the problem of shipyard productivity is as good as solved. Last month the shipyards.built 89 per cent, of the whole output of 1941.”