SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 254, 24 September 1940, Page 7

SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

ORDEAL OE SURVIVORS,

LONDON, Sept, 22. The torpedoing of the British ship in mid-Atlantic on September 17 while en route to Canada, as a result of which 89 evacuee children, aged between five and 16 years, were lost, was one of the most appalling sea tragedies since the outbreak of fine war.

The children all came from England or Wales. In several cases the child victims represented entire families. The attack occurred when most of the children were in, bed. A torpedo struck the ship in the part allotted to them, killing many outright. The remainder were bundled to the deck, scantily clothed for the ordeal of many hours on rafts and in lifeboats, some of which were waterlogged, with high seas raging. Many, separated from their parents and escorts, slipped to death from the arms of strangers who vainly sought to shield them from the storm.

The ship carried, besides the evacuees, 101 passengers and also a crew of 209, of whom 294 perished. The, last woman to leave the sinking ship actually stepped off the deck into the sea, where 'her fellow-passengers helped her to a raft. All the survivors paid a tribute to the Navy. “When we were taken on board,” said one, “thev took off their shoes and gave us their own warm socks. We were given hot baths, brandy, and sailors’ clothes while ours dried.” BOY’S HEROISM. A little boy whose heroism was praised by all in the boat from wlnOn lie was rescued was Colin Ricnardsou, from Monmouthshire, whose checry voice was always audible above the moaning of those suffering from exposure. A passenger said tnat the boy had to watch women and babies die and was obliged to witness bodies dropped overboard. He stood in water to his tyaist and did not once complain. A Londoner, Mr W. B. Forsyth, referring to the deaths in his boat, said: “I did my utmost as each body dropped overboard to give it Christian burial by conducting a short committal service over the water.” A lifeboat in which 32 occupants left the ship had only eight alive when picked up. Another had only 14 survivors out of 38. Colonel J. Baldwin-Webb, ALP., who was going to Canada in connection with Red Cross ambulance services, went down with the _ ■ • The commander of the ship was last seen on the bridge shouting to everybody to take the lifeboats. He also went down with the ship. Roderick Maher, of Dublin, said he was on an upturned boat from 1030 p.m. till he was picked up at pbout 4.30 p.m. tlie next day.' The survivors included a New Zealander, Mrs Lillian Rose Towns, who was an official escort. She was a schoolmistress in New Zealand, where she married Mr F. G. Towns, of Clap'”im, an optician who came to England three years ako. They had arranged to evacuate their daughter to New Zealand.

EXAMPLE OF NAZI BARBARITY. Mr G. li. Shakespeare (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Domin--ions), in a statement, said: “I am full of horror and indignation that any submarine captain could have torpedoed a ship over 000 rfiiles from land in a tempestuous sea and in conditions which were- such that there was little chance for the passengers, Whether adults or childreif. “This deed-will shock the world arid is another example of the barbarous methods of warfare associated with Nazi Germany. It is only comparable with their, present brutal and indiscriminate hombing of women and children in London.” Twelve privately evacuated children

were aboard the liner in addition to the Government evacuees and six of them perished, making the losses of children 89.