ABANDONED TO SHARKS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 September 1917, Page 3

ABANDONED TO SHARKS.

TORPEDOED SHIP'S CREW. GERMANS WITNESS STRUGGLES. LONDON, July 27. The steamer Mariston was torpedoed early on July. 15, and sank almost immediately. The cook, who jumped overoard with a , hatch, counted 17 men clinging to the wreckage. At that moment the submarine, a large craft painted jet black, came to the surface in the midst of her struggling and drowning victims. An officer stood several minutes looking at struggling forms in the water. He silently ignored all appeals for assistance, although there was no other vessel in sight, and the crew of the Mariston, could easily have been reached in a few minutes. At this moment one of the drowning men disappeared with a piercing scream and a moment 1 " lafer~~ another vanished in the same way. The horror of the situation had been enhanced by the arrival of a school of sharks, and gradually all of the brave men of the Mariston met with a terrible death. The scene was too much even for the submarine commander, for he closed the trap-door of the conning tower, and submerged his vessel. Fifteen hours later the sole survivor of" the tragedy was rescued bf a British merchant vesseTr