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Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 9 October 1917, Page 3

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HOW THE MOOLTAN SANK. PROMPT JAPANESE RESCUE. LASCARS BEHAVE WELL. London, August 7. Passengers by the Mooltan are full of admiration for the officers of the Japanese destroyers which rescued them when the P. and 0. liner was sunk in the Mediterranean about a hundred miles off the coast of Sardinia. The Japanese were escorting the Mooltan and a big French liner when the submarine got in its fatal shot. The Frenchman made off at full speed but in a few minutes the destroyers w r ere circling round the P. and O. boat throwing out smoke screens and keeping up a fusillade of firing at the. U-boat, which hung about for a while in order to make certain that its work had been accomplished. Immediately the submarine submerged one of the destroyers dropped a powerful time-bomb on the spot, and Mr Mackinnon, a Melbourne passenger, states that the effect was to throw into the air about half an acre of water. He is certain that in this huge column of water he saw portions, of the submarine, but other passengers do not seem To have detected this remarkable result. Mr D. J. Williams, the veteran who was retiming after a long engagement with the J. C. Williamson Co., says the Japanese officers were confident that they had got at least one submarine, and possibly tvra The behaviour of all on board the Mooltan appears to have been exemplary, and the few women and children on board were the first to be sent down into the boats. On this occasion there was no panic amongst the lascars, one of whom died from shock on board the Japanese destroyer. The only other death was that of a Portuguese wmiter who was killed by the explosion. When the Japanese got all the passengers and crew on board they treated them with the utmost consider ation and the next day brought them safely to Marseilles, where the P. and O. Co. provided necessary money for new outfits. A special train across France had been engaged and all the passengers and officers' arrived in London without mishap, and little the worse for their adventure.