DISASTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 January 1921, Page 5

DISASTER.

A SUBMARINE SUNK. CREW OF FIFTY LOST. BAMMED DURING EXERCISES. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Jan. 23, 5.5 p.m. London, Jan. 21. Official.—Submarine K 5 was lost with all hands near the entrance to the English Channel on Thursday. The Admiralty is investigating the cause. —Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn. Received Jan. 23, 11.5 p.m. London, Jan. 22. Submarine K 5 belonged to a supertype evolved during the war. She carried eight torpedo tubes, one four-inch, and one three-inch gun, and a crew of fifty, mostly belonging to Portsmouth. The disaster occurred a hundred miles off Land’s End. Five of the K class submarines were accompanying the Atlantic fleet on a cruise in Spanish waters, after the fleet had refuged for several days in Torbay owing to storms. It is officially stated K 5 was rammed while submerged during exercises designed to test the vulnerability of big ships to a submarine attack.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. BRAVE COMMANDER’S END. SUPER-TYPE OF SUBMARINE. Received Jan. 24, 1.20 a.m. London, Jan. 23. Captain Gaimes, commander of K 5, discovered a secret passage into Heligoland and laid a minefield practically in the anti-submarine gate of the boom near the island. A German patrol boat was cruising two hundred yards off and Captain Gaimes heard laughter, but they probably mistook him for a German officer. The K 5 class was already in service when Germany was boasting of the submarine Deutchland’s trans-Atlantic cruise. They were declared to be as effective a,s the Jargest destroyers, and made the U-boats obsolete. The Admiralty declares that the report that K 5 was rammed while submerged is unfounded. The Sunday Express states that official circles ai£ of opinion that K 5 was lost while diving, and was possibly blown up by an internal' explosion or a drifting mine some distance below the surface. A court of inquiry sits when the fleet anchors at Rosa Bay.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.