NORWEGIAN TRAWLER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 November 1939, Page 5

NORWEGIAN TRAWLER

SUNK WITHOUT WARNING CAPTAIN & 16 OTHERS MISSING. AN UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (■Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) LONDON, November 14. A northern trawler landed 23 members of the crew of a Norwegian tanker, which was torpedoed amidships without warning. The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat lor thirty hours - before they were picked up. A long search was made for a second lifeboat, containing the captain and sixteen other members of the crew, without result. The survivors stated that the tanker’s wireless was put out of action. The crew hurriedly abandoned the ship and the mate’s boat took the captain’s boat in tow, but the boats were separated during a storm at night. Next day they searched fruitlessly and finally attracted a trawler by means of a flare. They declared that they could not have lasted much longer and added that they were greatly anxious as to the fate of the captain, who was exhausted when the ship was torpedoed. He had been on the bridge for 36 hours without rest. BRITISH SHIP LOST MEMBERS OF CREW RESCUED BY LIFEBOAT. DEAD MAN LEFT ON BOARD. (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.} LONDON, November 14. The freighter Matra was lost as a result of an explosion in the North Sea last night. The captain, pilot, ten officers and forty Lascars were taken off by a lifeboat, which made three trips to the vessel. A tanker picked up other members of the crew who had rowed in a ships boat for several hours. One dead man was left aboard the Matra. It is believed that the Matra sank a mile away from the destroyer which was sunk by a mine. The Matra was visible from the shore early today, well down at the stern. SUNKEN WRECKAGE STRUCK BY BRITISH SHIPS SURVIVORS OF CREWS LANDED (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, November 14. An East Coast lifeboat, after seventeen hours at sea, landed 46 survivors of two British ships which struck the same submerged wreckage on November 5. Another- British steamer struck the same wreckage on November 4.