GHASTLY NAZI CRIME

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 253, 23 September 1940, Page 7

GHASTLY NAZI CRIME

PASSENGER LINER SUNK

CHILD EVACUEES DROWNED

LONDON, Sept. 22

A heartrending tragedy, involving the sinking .in the North Atlantic of a liner conveying a party of children to Canada, has been revealed . with the arrival of the survivors at a British port. The ship was torpedoed during a storm at 10 o’clock on Tuesday night, and 295 lives were lost, including 83 of 90 children who had been evacuated from Britain.

Tlie children embarked from a West Coast port-during the second week of September, and when the torpedoing occurred their ship was nearing the journey’s end, being 600 miles from land. A total of 113 lives were saved, including two of the nine adult escorts for the children, who were mostly from London, Middlesex and Liverpool.

toll of Fife. Among those who lost their lives were the captain of the liner, a doctor, and a -nurse. Colonel J. Baldwin-Webb, Conservative M.P. for Wrekin, is among the missing. Professor J. V. Lay, of McGill University, Toronto, was unconscious when he was rescued.

At the time of the torpedoing the seas were very rough, hampering the work of rescue, but the children obeyed with remarkable coolness the orders given while the ship was sinking beneath them. Many were killed- by the explosion of the torpedo. The vessel was badly damaged by the impact; and there were only 20 minutes between the time the torpedo struck and she disappeared beneath the waves. Great difficulty was experienced in launching the boats, and there were casualties at the start.

One of the survivors, Mr W. R. Forsythe, of London, stated that there was a terrific crash when thife torpedo struck, and the ship shuddered. - All the children behaved wonderfully. A woman survivor stated that she and a girl of 14 had to.swim away from the doomed vessel. She was almost giving up hope when a stick with a piece of rag attached was raised and she and others were rescued. At the time they were in the water hailstones were falling.

Yet another survivor, a woman going to Australia by wav of Vancouver, related how she with others was on a raft to which they had to cling with their hands, without sustenance, till they were rescued An 11-year-old girl told how she had been rescued with a 9-year-old brother; her mother, and another woman. They were the only- complete party to be rescued. Conveying to the parents of the children whose lives have been lost his sincere sympathy, Mr G. H. Shakespeare, chairman of the Children’s Reception Committee, said the course of the, war had shown that■both bv land and sea no one was any longer in com-plete-safety. MASS MURDER.

Remarking on the disaster, a commentator said the Commander of the submarine probably did not know there were children aboard the vessel, hut he did know that m such a sea, on such a night, it was very unlikely the survivors would reach land 600 miles away. “When he launched his torpedo he was committing mass murder, said the commentator. Up till September 17 nearly 3000 children had been transported abroad without mishap.