SEA RESCUE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20127, 22 December 1939, Page 7

SEA RESCUE

SIX MEN .ON RAFT DISCOVERY BY PLANE GUIDE TO DESTROYER MORE VESSELS MINED (Reed. Dec. 22, noon.) LONDON, Dec. 21. Six survivors of the Swedish steamer. Lister, of 13G6 tons, were rescued yesterday by the co-operation of British aircraft and a destroyer. A Royal Air Force coastal command machine on its way to deal with an urgent military objective many miles away sighted what > appeared to toe wooden planks scattered from a ship’s cargo. A closer investigation showed a rough raft on which six men stood waving their hands. Unable to divert from its objective, the aircraft sent a reassuring lamp signal to the men on the raft and by radio sent a code signal to the base giving the position of the find. At once was action taken. Another aircraft was sent to the position to keep watch and a destroyer was ordered out to pick up the men. A fierce gale had arisen meanwhile which drove the raft far from the position given by the first aircraft. Search Over 100 Miles

The second machine, not finding the raft near the indicated position, carried out a close search, taking the reported position as a centre and sweeping the sea for 100 miles around. Eventually the raft was sighted with the six men still on it. The destroyer was still many miles away, however, and was steaming towards the first reported position. The aircraft set off to meet the snip and by a lamp signal indicated the new position, to which it guided the warship, firing flares to give the exact location. The destroyer, thus aided, ■saw the raft, from which all the men were rescued by the destroyer’s boat. An Oslo report states that the Swedish ship Sir Ernest Cassel arrived at Kopervik with 14 members of the crew of the Estonian ship, Uko, which was sunk by a German plane in the North Sea on Tuesday. A message from Amsterdam states that the Swedish steamer Adolf Bratt, of 1&18 tons, bound for Rotterdam from Gothenburg, was sunk by a mine, five of the crew being killed. The ship Mars, of 1475 tons, was mined and sank off the north-east coast. Seven of the crew are believed to have been lost.