BOATS MISSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1940, Page 5

BOATS MISSING

FROM ITALIAN LINER ORAZIO FEARS OF HEAVY LOSS OF LIFE SHIP A GIGANTIC TORCH. ABANDONED BY TOWING VESSEL. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, January 22. It is now officially stated in Rome that 82 persons are missing from the 11,GOO-ton Italian liner Orazio, which is on fire in the western Mediterranean. Hope for them has been almost given up in view of the stormy seas. Five engineers are believed to have been killed by the explosion. Three crowded lifeboats were swept away and lost in the darkness. Twelve Italian seaplanes, five liners, two French warships and one minesweeper co-operated in the rescue of passengers and members of the crew from the Orazio.

She is drifting and on fire from stem to stern in the storm-swept Mediterranean. .. A seaplane flying over the ship reported that she is a gigantic torch, the oil from her bunkers feeding the flames. The mainmast has fallen overboard and a lofty pillar of flames is shooting up from the poop. The Orazio was for a time towed by s rescue vessel, but she is now reported to have been abandoned.

The Paris correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says that French warships and Italian find French seaplanes were still searching at midnight, for the missing lifeboats, which contain many women and children. French circles in London revealed that a French auxiliary cruiser stopped the Orazio before the fire and took oil eight Germans. Later she received the SOS and played a prominent part in the rescue. TWO BOATS LOCATED AN ADMIRALTY REPORT. (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) MARSEILLES, January 23. The Admiralty has informed the Italian Consul-General that two of the missing Orazio lifeboats have been located and that the members of the crew trapped by the original explosion are the only ones missing.