ARK ROYAL’S ESCAPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1940, Page 6

ARK ROYAL’S ESCAPE

BOMBING BY GERMAN PLANE SHIP HEELS OVER. REPLY TO NAZI BROADCASTS. The "real story" of what happened to the Ark Royal, British aeroplane carrier, which the Germans insist they have sunk, was told recently on the basis of the testimony of an eye-wit-ness by Sir Derwent Hall Caine, chairman of the semi-official British Government paper. “The News Letter.” Sir Derwent spoke at a luncheon of the Overseas Press Club in the Hotel Gladstone, New York. He told the story by way of a reply to repeated broadcasts from Berlin—which, he said, were by the ousted former British officer, Norman Baillie-Stewart—inviting the British public to “ask Winston Churchill about what happened to the Ark Royal.”

“Have any of you ever heard a voice over the radio from Europe say: 'Ask Mr Winston Churchill what happened to the Ark Royal’?” Sir Derwent said. “If the person who asks that question is listening in, I will tell him, if he does not already know, what has happened to the Ark Royal. “A few days before I sailed for this country, I was dining at the Royal Air Force Club in London with an old friend. He saw at the other end. of the room a man whom he knew and he turned to me and said: 'There's old Jimmy. He’s on the Ark Royal. Let's have him over here and get his story about what happened.’ “So Jimmie came over to the table and I said to him: ‘Tell us what actually did take place.’ He said: ‘Oh, nothing much; except that I ruined a perfectly good uniform. We were steaming along very slowly with four other ships, escorting a disabled submarine. It was a lovely day, and I looked up and saw two German seaplanes right above us. flying very high. “'I turned to one of my pals and said: “Ssh! Don't say anything. Maybe they haven’t seen us." They flew on a bit and then turned back. About 15 minutes later we got a call to-man the anti-aircraft guns. " 'Six Heinkel bombers were overhead, dropping bombs all around us. They wore all wide of the mark and our anti-aircraft fire got too hot for them, so they turned around and went back. Then I saw one of the machines turn again toward the stern of our ship. “ 'He swooped down in a powerdive well over 400 miles an hour, straight at our deck, and when he was no more than a few feet off the deck he dropped a 500-pound bomb. " 'lt fell in the water only a few feet from the side of the ship. The ship heeled over and the port side of the flying deck went awash. I slid down the deck on my back, and got a good soaking. Then the miracle happened. The ship righted itself again and came back to even keel. “ 'By this time the bomber had turned and gone on its way back to Germany. The ship was not damaged in any way. No one was hurt, but I think the boy who dropped that bomb was quite entitled to go back to his base and say he thought he had sunk the Ark Royal.'

“I say to Mr Baillie-Stewart, late of the Seaforth Highlanders, the man who broadcasts from Germany since his release from gaol in the Tower of London, that is the answer to his question as to what happened to the Ark Royal, and we need not ask Mr Winston Churchill.”