STORY OF HAMPSHIRE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 17 January 1917, Page 6

STORY OF HAMPSHIRE.

A strange story concerning the loss of tli e Hampshire, the British cruiser aboard which was Lord Kitchener on Ins ill-fated journey, has reached Oamaru (says the “Mail"). A lady has received a letter from a friend in England in which the writer states that a friend of his, the supposed widow of one of those aboard the Hampshire, who had given up her husband for lost when the Hampshire went down, was startled into hopefulness on receipt of a letter from her husband in Germany, staling that he was a prisoner there and that j his wife would be astonished if she knew who were prisoners with him. That, however, he was not allowed to tell. It will be remembered that there were only one or two survivors from the Hampshire, who drifted ashore on a, raft amongst the rocks on a rugged part of the Scottish coast, from which perilous position they were rescued. A storm was raging at the time, and it wa s not suggested that the cruiser was torpedoed. If, however, the story is true —thou the Hampshire must have been torpedoed, else how did the man reach Germany as a prisoner of war? It must have been a submarine or a German war vessel that rescued him and others. Th e story is a remarkable one,, but the lady whose husband is reported to be a prisoner in Germany is sure that part of the story is correct. n ,