CUT IN HALF.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1922, Page 5

CUT IN HALF.

FATE OF SUBMARINE, ALL HANDS LOST. NO CHANCE TO ESCAPE. . . .—-j By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received March 24, 7.45 p.m. London, March 24. The submarine H 42 w’as Arising to the surface at the manoeuvres when she was telescoped by the Versatile,, which was going at twenty-seven knots an hour. - The submarine came to the surface within twenty yards of the destroyer, so tha,t a collision was inevitable, the destroyer cutting right through the tiny vessel. The Versatile stood by for some hours, but the hope of any rescue was the smallest. The water rushed in, and the submarine instantly sank in half a mile of water. All must have been drowned within two or three minutes, without a chance of escaping. The Versatile was not taking part in the manoeuvres, but was under orders to return to England. She was on her way when the accident happened. Her bows were so damaged that she was towed to Gibraltar, stern foremost, with two compartments flooded.

The commander of the submarine, Lieutenant Sealey, had a distinguished war record, specially in the 'Baltic. Lieutenant Price, second in command, won the D.S.O. as a midshipman for heroic service in the Dardanelles. PATHETIC SCENE AT DEVONPORT. Thirty-three of the crew belonged to Portsmouth, where they • spent their Christmas leave. Pathetic scenes were witnessed at the dockyard gates, where mothers and wives waited all night long hoping for details, or even news of rescuers. It is not certain that all the crew were on board, but some reports state as many as forty died, as extra men were on board for training. AN UNFORTUNATE CLASS. The accident follows upon the narrow escape of a sister ship, the H 24, as cabled on February 15. The destroyer belonged to the same flotilla as the Versatile. The H 32 was damaged in a collision in 1919, and was not worth salving. Most of the H class were built in Canada during the war. The navy has now lost ten submarines in peace time and forty-seven in war time. THE KING’S MESSAGE. The King sent the following message to the commander of the Atlantic Fleet: “I am greatly shocked to hear of the disaster. I wish the deep sympathy of myself and the Queen to be conveyed to the families of the missing.” In the House of Commons, it was officially stated that the H 42 came to the surface thirty <jr forty yards from the Versatile, which was steaming at twenty knots, and that there was no spare crew on the submarine.