LOST YORKSHIRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20079, 27 October 1939, Page 11

LOST YORKSHIRE

MOVING STORY TOLD

MOTHER AND GIRLS

LAST SEEN ON DECK

ORDERED IN BOAT

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—-United Press Assn.) (Reed. Oct. 26, 2.20 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 25.

Sitting in a room of his home with his widowed mother in Blackpool, John Taylor, aged 15 years, a bugler aboard the Yorkshire, the Bibby Line ship which was sunk in the Atlantic last week, told a moving story of the disaster.

“I remember a mother and her two little daughters clinging together on the deck as the ship went down,” he said. “They seemed too stunned and shocked to move.

“A six-year-old girl, Hazel Armstrong, fell down a hatch and was rescued by a carpenter. She and her seven-year-old brother were saved, but the mother and two sisters, the latter aged five and two respectively, were drowned.

“I went to the bridge after the first explosion. The captain, who subsequently went down with the ship, said: ‘Get into a boat. I will join you as soon as possible.’ “People piled into the boats. Natives fell on their knees and prayed. “A second explosion occurred and the Yorkshire heeled over. I dived over and swam for five minutes.

“My thick trousers began to drag me down. A wave washed me up at the side of a lifeboat and someone dragged me in. “We had been eight hours in the boat, bailing continuously, when the Independence Hall arrived.”