EVACUEE CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1940, Page 4

EVACUEE CHILDREN

ANOTHER PARTY REACHES WELLINGTON. NONE COMING TO WAIRARAPA. A second official party of 113 English children evacuated from Britain under the Government scheme arrived in Wellington yesterday. No advice has been received by the Mayor, Mr T. Jordan, of any of the children being allocated to the Wairarapa. Probably the children will be distributed among districts not included in the last allocation. At the outset of their journey, the convey in which they were travelling was scattered by submarine attack. A torpedo passed within a few yards of their vessel, and struck another carrying 300 childen bound for a sister Dominion. They saw the stricken liner going down, and passengers and crew abandoning her, but had to hurry on and leave the rescue to the escort vessels. They did not rejoin the convoy, but carried on alone. Afterward they learned that, of the 900 passengers on the torpedoed ship, not a single life had been lost. The sole casualty was one of the ship’s officers, who was killed when he missed his footing climbing into a lifeboat. This was the liner reported to have been torpedoed on her way to Canada several weeks ago. Cabled accounts of the rescue of the children appeared in the New Zealand papers at the time. The children behaved extremely well when the alarm was given. Most of them believed it to be only another of the frequent lifeboat practices carried out in the early days of the voyage.