ESCAPES AT SEA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 173, 9 August 1937, Page 7

ESCAPES AT SEA

Engineer't Experiences Miraculous escapos and experiences at sea are told of by Mr. Walter H. Clancy, chief engineer of the Eoyal Mail liner Asturias, who has retired from the sea. A euriotls instance of premonition attended one of his narrowest escapes. It was in 1907, when he was serVing on ihe Tagus. During the ship's brief itay at Jamaica, Mr. Clancy visited friends at Ningston and was having tea on the verandah. DoWn the road same a nOgress carrying a hurricane iamp and followed 'by a jefering crowd. At every few steph she fell to tbe ground crying ""Woe, Woe, Woe" and warning tbo inhabitants that Kingston wotild be destroyed. People merely thought her mad. That was a Saturday and the Tagus sailed at midnight. On the Monday Kingston was ilmoSt completely destroyed by a terrible eartbquake and thousands of lives were loit. Among tbem wete passenr;ers who had been landed from the Pagus. Another experience which Mr. Clancy had is of interest to many New Zealand- soldiers, who saw many of the svents of which he tells. Jn 1918 the ship on. which he was serving lef t Halifax, Nova Scotia, shortly before part of the city was wrecked by a disastrous exploeion. Its cause was a collision between the French ship Mont Blaiic, h6r . holds crammed with 5000 tons of explosives, and her decks covered with cans of pctrol, and another vesael in the narrows. Fire broke out and When the ship drifted alongside the dock and blew up thousands of people were killed and the whole port area waS destroyed. Windows 90 miles away were brokefl, and a ship's anehor, weighing five tons, was fiung a mile and a half across the town. Her threo and a-half ton gun was found in a lake three miles away.