SUBMARINE TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 20 December 1927, Page 2

SUBMARINE TRAGEDY

•SIGNS' OF LIFE HEARD. (Australia..! & N.Z. Cable Associat','«.) NEW YORK. Dec. 18. Captain Brume, commanding the group engaged in salvaging the 5.4, leported to the Navy Department that signs of life were heard inside the vessel. He said there were responses to a diver tapping on the torpedo room. A hole eight feet wide was found on the starboard side of the battery room. The men are believed to be living, except those in tlie battery room, where they died in the crash. Tangled wires prevent tapping at the control room and other compartments.

SIX MEN ALIVE. VANCOUVER. Dec. 18. The I itest advice from Provincetown is that six of the men entrapped in the submarine SI are alive in the torpedo room. This was ascertained by the diver by means of signals. Their rescue was not effected to-night. NEW YORK, Dee. 19. Communicating by means of code hammer tapping, a diver received a reply from the imprisoned crew saying that six men were alive within the torpedo room. The message added: " The gas is not had. but the air is. Will you he long? ” There is no evidence of anyone alive in the other parts of the submarine. The Navy tug luka, dragging three pontoons to the scene, lost one in the heavy running seas. The waves at the spot where the disaster occurred are so high that rescue work is almost impossible. Navy men are working frantically in answer to the entombed men’s plea •• Please hurry.”