SUDDEN DISASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 October 1939, Page 5

SUDDEN DISASTER

SINKING OF ROVAL OAK SURVIVORS REACH LONDON. •INVOLVED TN RAILWAY ACCIDENT. Ry Telegraph—Press Association*—Copyright. LONDON. October 21. Throe hundred survivors of the Royal Oak arrived al London wearing- mol ley borrowed clolhes, sailors and fishermen instrumental in their rescue having given them all they had. Army officers and orderlies met the party and divided it into small groups, each of which was taken to hotels or restaurants. The luggage of the entire parly was so meagre that, it was loaded on a single truck. One of the officers who had vainly tried to save a seaman said scores of men actually did save comrades, but were rather quid about the disaster and their, part in it. A sailor said: “'Thank God it was not a rough sea. I saw several men near me lift up their hands and disappear. Oil on the water made outeyes feel as if they would burst, but we dared not stop swimming and try to rub- them." An officer said the Royal Oak turned over and plunged to the bottom within a quarter of an hour. The adventures of the Royal Oak survivors were not ended when they were rescued, for they were involved in a train accident while travelling south. The train crashed into, a line of trucks, but no one was injured. .. The survivors highly praised the courage and daring of the skipper of a drifter, who lashed his boat alongside the sinking warship and picked up many men. An able seaman said that one of the crew of the drifter leaned over and pulled sailor after sailor from the water like a man in big fish. The warship threatened to heel over- and take the drifter with her, but somebody cut the lines and the drifter backed away as the Royal Oak plunged to the bottom. An officer said that there was no sign of panic and the men responded to orders immediately. U=BOAT GREETED BERLIN, October 21. The crews manned every ship in Kiel harbour as the U-boat which torpedoed tlie Royal Oak entered. Admiral Carls, Commander-in-Chief in the Baltic, greeted the commander and crew, whom the Lord Mayor received at the town hall.