SEA TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1939, Page 8

SEA TRAGEDY

SINKING OF THE YORKSHIRE DEATH OF HELPLESS VICTIMS. SHIP’S BUGLER'S STORY. By Telegraph—Pres? Association—Copyright. (Received This Day. 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, October 25. Sitting at home with his widowed mother •in Blackpool, the 15-year-old John Taylor, bugler aboard the Yorkshire. told a moving story of the disaster. “I remember a mother and two little daughters clinging together on the deck as the ship went down,” he said. “They seemed too stunned and shocked to move. A six-year-old girl, Hazel Armstrong, fell down a hatch, and was rescued by the carpenter. She and her seven-year-old brother were saved, but her mother and two sisters, aged five and two were drowned. “I went to the bridge after the first explosion. The captain said: ‘Get into a boat. I will join you as soon as possible’ (the captain went down with hisship). People piled into the boats. Natives fell on their knees and prayed. A second explosion occurred and the Yorkshire heeled over. I dived, and swam for five minutes. My thick trousers began to drag me dov/n. A wave washed me up to the side of a lifeboat and someone dragged me in. We had been for eight hours in the boat, bailing continuously, when the Independence Hall arrived.