PASSENGERS SING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1940, Page 5

PASSENGERS SING

UNDER FIRE OF GERMAN RAIDER THE RANGITIKI’S ESCAPE. STORY TOLD BY CAPTAIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, November 18. Captain Henry Barnett, relating the story of the Rangitiki’s escape from the raider which shelled a convoy in the Atlantic recently, said his passengers sang and played games, with the Rangitiki zigzagging through heavy seas and shells falling round her. “Three-quarters of an hour after sighting the ship she could be identified as a warship of heavy calibre,” he said. “The enemy fired against the Jervis Bay as the convoy, acting swiftly to orders, turned to starboard and dispersed. Meanwhile the Jervis Bay steamed toward the enemy, whose second salvo hit the Jervis Bay amidships. “Then the raider concentrated on the Rangitiki. Its first salvo fell 400 yards short, the second straddled us amidships and the third again straddled us forward of the bridge. One shell landed less than 50 yards away, smothering the bridge with shell fragments, but without doing appreciable damage. But for a light south-easterly that enabled our smoke to screen us it is unlikely that we would have escaped.” Captain Barnett has not removed his clothes for a week.