DEVIL’S ISLE SHIP

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 254, 3 November 1939, Page 2

DEVIL’S ISLE SHIP

LAeT VOYAGE 11A.I )K LONDON. Aug. 17.—La Alartinieie, hell-ship that lias carried thousands of murders and “lifers across the Atlantic from France to the horrors of Devil’s Island, will never put U> sea attain. She is to he stripped of her steel liars and machine-gun liftings, and turned into a pontoon for use at the mouth of the River Loire at St. Xa zaire. The hell-ship has I teen sold by her owners, the French Line, because the French Gcvermuent recently closed down llcvil’s Island as a prison. They decided to leave the GCCO prisoners still there, but tea send out no more. Originally, La Alartiniere was owned by a British company. She was made in West Al'artlopool *2B \cars ago as the Armanistnn. 700 In “Cargo” As a floating prison she was able to carry as many as 7(10 criminals at a time on their ''l7-day journey to Devil's Isle which the maps call Isle St. Joseph, formerly a leper settlement. Convicts lived 'in steel cages in the holds throughout the voyage, and were allowed half an hour’s promenade on deck each evening, guarded by gendarmes carrying carbines and submachine guns. There was never a mutiny in La Alartiniere. Jots in the roofs ef the cages could spray steam on the occupants. and one gendarme operating a central turn-cock could quell the fiercest mutiny..