LINER DISAPPEARS LEAVING NO TRACE GRIM SECRET OF PACIFIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 347, 7 May 1928, Page 1

LINER DISAPPEARS LEAVING NO TRACE

GRIM SECRET OF PACIFIC

FINE MOTOR-SHIP LOST AT SEA SENT FAINT, STUTTERING S.O.S. NIAGARA RECEIVES HER LAST MESSAGE (United P.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian P.A.—United Service) Reed. 11.5 a.m. SAN FRANCISCO, Sunday. r 3 fate of another splendidly-equipped motor-ship is a secret kept by the Pacific. On March 24 the Asiatic Prince disappeared, and Lloyd’s agents here have finally announced that she is utterly lost.

She was built two years ago at Hamburg, and was a well-manned craft of 6,700 tons, operated by the FurnessWithy Company. On the date mentioned the Niagara picked up a stuttering, faint S.O.S. giving a longitude and code letters which were understood as G.J.V.R. The message then ended abruptly. The Canadian-Augtralian liner’s operator was unable to hear another sound. Another liner nearly caught the same message, and the code letters, which belonged to the tanker British Hussar, which was believed to be in trouble somewhere 30uth-west of Hawaii. For several days American warships searched, when they suddenly discovered that the British Hussar was safe In port several thousand miles away.

Wireless experts were wondering if the message was a hoax, when a cable came from Yokohama that the Asiatic Prince was five days overdue from Los Angeles. This gave rise to curiosity, and the Asiatic Prince’s code ’ letters were found to be G.J.V.P. .

The last letter could easily be sent by an excited operator and sound like the British Hussar’s signal. A renewed search was then started by several tenders of the American fleet at Hawaii, but without result,

SAVED BY MARRIAGE

GIRL WHO STOLE COAT MAGISTRATE’S LENIENCY Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. When Mary Ellen Conrad, aged 20, appeared before Mr. E. Page, S.M., last week charged with the theft of a woman’s coat valued at £B, Chief-De-*. tective Ward said she was living with a man at Eastbourne. The magistrate remanded the girl to enable the man to marry. To-day the chief detective said that the marriage took place on Saturday. The magistrate convicted the girl and ordered her to come up for sentence within 12 months if called upon, the value of the coat to be made good within a month.

and seamen are forced to the conclusion that the vessel sank on March 24 without leaving a trace.

The Asiatic Prince, a steel twin-screw motor-ship of 6,734 tons gross register, was built in 1926 by the Deutsche Werft Company, at Hamburg. She was owned by the Rio Cape Line, and her port of registry was London. She was 441 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 29 feet deep. NO LATITUDE GIVEN UNAVAILING SEARCH MADE CALL BEFORE SUNRISE The Royal Mail liner Niagara is at present in port here, and inquiries made this morning reveal that the S.O.S. signal was picked up by her on the morning after she left Vancouver for Auckland on her last trip. The message, however, was very faint, and evidently had been sent out on an emergency set, the batteries of which were probably not up to strength. It was received just before sunrise, one of the best times for picking up a message, but it was very stuttery and the call was taken as G.J.V.R.. which In the opinion of operators could very easily have been G.J.V.P., the call number of the Asiatic Prince. The longitude of the ship’s position was given as 163 degrees 30 minutes, but the message did not say whether east or west, and no latitude was given, the sender concentrating jn the S.O.S. signal. The signal was also picked up by the American mail liner Ventura, hut was not heard at Honolulu.

When the Niagara reached Honolulu it was four.d that the Asiatic Prince was already ten days overdue, and that two American destroyers and a minesweeper had been dispatched to search for the missing steamer. The three warships searched first in a south-west direction, and then to the north, but without success.