NAZI SAVAGERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1940, Page 5

NAZI SAVAGERY

ATTACKS ON UNARMED TRAWLERS VESSELS BOMBED AND CREWS MACHINE-GUNNED. WHEN TRYING TO LAUNCH BOATS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, January 7. Accounts of the attacks by German aircraft on two unarmed Scottish trawlers were given today, when the survivors arrived at a north-east coast port from Norway. Mr David Addison, a seaman of the trawler Trinity N.V., said that on December 18 two German ’planes, flying low over the boat, swept her decks with machine-gun fire, hitting one man in the leg. “When we tried to launch the boats they fired on us,” he said. “Several bombs were dropped, and the last one cut the trawler in two, and we were left struggling in the water clinging to the wreckage. “William Murray, a fireman, was drowned. We were in the water for an hour before being picked up by a Danish motor ship, which took us to Norway.” The other trawler, which was named the River Earn, was also fishing in the North Sea on December 19. and had on board three survivors from the Danish steamer Boge, which had been mined. Two German aircraft bombed the trawler and fired their machine-guns at the crew as they tried to launch a boat. The trawler's crew was picked up by a Swedish steamer 36 hours later. The steamship Towneley (2888 tons) was mined and sunk off the south-east coast. The crew was saved. The Towneley sank slowly, allowing the men to take to the boats, in which they rowed to a lightship, where lifeboats picked them up. Three members of the crew have been admitted to hospital. CREW SAVED SHIP MINED OFF ENGLISH COAST. LOOK-OUT BLOWN INTO AIR. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.5 a.m.) RUGBY, January 8. All members of the crew of thirtyfour of the London cargo steamer Cedrington Court, 5160 tons, which was sunk yesterday by a mine off the South 'Coast, were saved, although the vessel sank within ten minutes of the explosion. . Five of the survivors were taken to hospital, but only one was detained. He was on the look-out, and was blown twenty feet into the air by the force of the explosion, landing on the deck with a broken leg. The crew’s pets—four monkeys, five canaries and a cat — went down with the ship.