ESCAPES AT SEA

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1940, Page 6

ESCAPES AT SEA

By Telegraph—Press Association

WARTIME ADVENTURES

Auckland, Sept. 25. More than a full share of wartime experiences and adventures has been the lot of Mr. S. Williams, a steward on a liner, now at Auckland. Since January he has been on a ship that was bombed and sunk, he has played a part in the evacuation of Dunkirk- and has been on a small vessel that fell to pieces through the concussion of heavy German bombing in January. Mr. Williams v/as a member of the crew of a British cargo vessel that was bombed and sunk in the English Channel. He was thrown into the wintry sea and floated about foi 84 minutes before being picked up by a tugboat. He was seven weeks in hospital with pleurisy and pneumonia as the result. After a further period of convalescence he joined a small East Coast trader and was on this vessel when Dunkirk was evacuated. Diffldent about discussing this event "because it is all past and forgotten," Mr. Williams did admit that "we made four trips across the Channel in three days to assist in rescuing men and equipment from France and made a fifth trip half-way across to bring back barges which had been towed from French harbours." His ship had escaped damage from German dive-bombers and he himself had come out without a scratch. He said that one of the features of the evacuation which had greatly impressed him was the manner in which the British soldiers had swum out from the French shore holding grimly to their rifles and other equipment, which they were determined not to| lose. Mr. Williams had his third experience a few days later. He was still in the same ship, which was one of three small craft, approaching Grimsby. The other two ship were bombed and mined respectively and snnk. So greatly was his own ship damaged by the concussion of the German bombing that it was just able to reach Grimsby and then literally fell apart.