EXCITING VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA

Southland Times, Issue 24229, 12 September 1940, Page 8

EXCITING VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA

SHIPLOAD OF ENEMY PRISONERS TWO TORPEDOES FIRED AT VESSEL SYDNEY, September 7. Tragedy and excitement marked the voyage to Australia of a British troopship carrying German and Italian prisoners who reached Sydney yesterday. The prisoners included parachutists, other prisoners of war, and hundreds who have been carrying out subversive work in England. They Lave been taken to internment camps in Victoria and New South Wales.

During the voyage, two torpedoes fired by a, submarine passed under the ship and exploded on the other side, without causing damage. The vessel was shaken, and the prisoners rushed for the lifeboats. A Nazi announced that he was going to die for the Fatherland, leapt overboard, and was drowned. Another prisoner was killed in a brawl with other Nazis. A third man died from natural causes. A prisoner tried to cut vital electrical equipment on the ship with a tin-opener. VARIETY OF TYPES The men varied greatly in type. Some —usually the younger ones—laughed gaily as they landed; others were grave; others surveyed the new land with sneers. It was stated that Hitler had arranged for the men on arrival in Australia to receive £2 each. Two of the internees refused to accept this bonus, and asked that it. should be paid into a fund for the purchase of Spitfires for Britain.

Most of the internees were young. After they had been taken from the ship and placed in a train for transport to their internment camp in the country, they smiled as if they were delighted at being in a safe country. Many gave the “thumbs-up” sign to onlookers. A number of the older men frowned and scowled through the train windows, looking like the dangerous conspirators depicted in cartoons as they shrugged back into their carriage seats. As the train pulled out, faces wreathed in smiles, dour faces, stolid faces, thin-lipped, sneering and arrogant faces, framed in the carriage windows flashed by the knot of guards at the wharf gates.

TORPEDO ATTACK DE.” BRIBED The guard on the ship consisted largely of Norfolk and Suffolk men who were in. the evacuation of Dunkirk. The commanding officer of the troops, who are officia’’’- designated as “Q” troops as indicative of .the mystery of’, their assignment, was Lieutenant-Colonel W. P. Scott, an impressive kilted figure. Colonel Scott has had’ three brothers killed in the present war, and two more are interned in Germany. He told a graphic story, of the submarine attack on ; the internees’, ship. “We, were in convoy with a ship evacuating, children from Britain,” he said. “An alarm, was given, and the children’s ship, with our destroyer escort, steamed off at full speed. We were left alone in charge of all we surveyed. Two torpedoe passed right underneath us. We crammed on all speed, and the guns were manned.” A member, of the guard said that during one scare there was a general panic among the prisoners,; and some made a rush for the lifeboats, but the guard restrained them. There was a pause, and a German officer stepped in front of the prisoners. In an explosive address, given with German military precision, he admonished the men, who returned quietly t( their quartets. SUICIDE AT SEA

Colonel Scott said that most of the men had been interned in Britain after the outbreak of war. A number were prisoners of war. Practically all were Germans and Italians, with Germans predominating. Describing the suicide of one at sea an officer said: “The men had been assembled on deck’ for early morning exercise. One of them suddenly dashed from the ranks and ran towards the ship’s rail. The guard dived at him, but the German vaulted over the rails anu dropped into the sea. Scores of lifebelts and buoys were thrown to him. The ship manoeuvred in a fairly heavy sea, but we were unable to find the man.