Sea’s Tragic Toll

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 514, 17 November 1928, Page 1

Sea’s Tragic Toll

ANOTHER SHIP ASHORE

Sank Latvian Steamer

PITIFUL SCENES IN BEREAVED RYE

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) Received 9 a.m. LONDON, Friday. rIE German steamer Smyrna, which collided with and sank the Latvian steamer Alice and picked up the latter’s survivors (needlessly going to whose succour the Rye lifeboatmen perished), is now ashore herself off Flessingen, with the Alice’s crew aboard. A fierce gale prevents salvagers from approaching.

Rye, In Sussex, is a most tragic village, denuded of its menfolk. The distracted women hardly realise the force of the catastrophe Or. - young wife to-day wandered hatless to the windy, rain-swept beach. a group weeping, and asked, “What are you crying for? My husband is late home, but I have his dinner in the oven.” Friends led her gently homeward. Subscriptions are already coming in from all over the country. On Monday, the 13 bodies which have been recovered will be buried in a single grave. When the lifeboat capsized the sobbing women knew there was noLiimg left for them but to wait until the tide brought in the bodies. Fishermen from nearby villages tied ropes to their waists and put on lifebelts, and whenever a body was seen in the breakers they dashed in, and by 3.30 p.m. nine bodies were recovered.

The women gathered round, and heartbroken sobs showed when a husband, a son or a brother had been

recognised. Most of the bodies were dreadfully battered.

The lifeboat was not of a -modern type, but was a stout sailing boat, and liable to capsize like any ship’s lifeboat.

There are 10 fatherless children in the village, seven of them in one cottage.