LANCASTRIA SURVIVOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24409, 21 September 1940, Page 19

LANCASTRIA SURVIVOR

MARRIES SYDNEY GIRL CORPORAL J. B. SUN LEY DIVED INTO OIL-COVERED SEA (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, Aug. 26. Six weeks after escaping from the Lancastria by jumping overboard into an oil-covered sea, Corporal John Bernard H. M. Sunley (Christchurch) was married at St. Martin-in-the-Fields to Miss Winifred E. E. Begbie (Sydney). The best man was Corporal R, Schabert, also a Lancastria survivor. It was a quiet wedding, only a few New Zealand* and Australian friends being present. Corporal Sunley, an old boy of St. Bede’s, went to France with the British Expeditionary Force in September. He has applied for a transfer to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Britain. He is a cousin of Mr R. M. Sunley, finance officer at New Zealand House. The Lancastria was bombed and sunk by the Germans off the French coast. “ I was below decks when she was hit,” said Corporal Sunley, “Actually I was just on my way up and was between decks. I was blown down the ladder, and when I picked myself up and got up top the decks were awash. “She went down so fast that there was time only for two lifeboats to be launched, and one of them capsized. She heeled over quickly, and the only thing to do was to jump for. it. The decks were pretty well a shambles. “ Schabert selected a place on one side of the ship to dive over board: and I found another. We just said ‘ Cheerio! ’ and went in. There was thick oil everywhere, but after the first 20 yards it didn’t worry me. I hadn’t got a lifebelt, but the water was warm and so it didn’t matter much.

“ I lay on my back for most of the time. There were a lot of dead fish about and I saw a Jerry plane flying around dropping flares on the water trying to set fire to the oil. He didn’t have any luck, because each time he dropped one our fellows just doused it. It was surprising the way even fellows who couldn’t swim a stroke kept themselves going. “We didn’t worry much, because there were minesweepers about, and we knew we’d be picked up, I was hauled aboard after I'd been in for about an hour, and I was getting pretty exhausted by then. They cleaned the oil off us with petrol and cotton waste and we all looked like a lot of dervishes. There were about 900 of us put in one ship, and they go us back to Plymouth in quite good time.” Mrs Sunley is a nurse and she is at present at the Stanboroughs Hospital, Watford.