BATHING TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 October 1941, Page 6

BATHING TRAGEDY

THREE NEW ZEALANDERS DROWNED ON MEDITERRANEAN BEACH. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO RESCUE OTHERS. (From the Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO, October 2. In a classic example of willing sacrifice, three New Zealand artillerymen lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea as they strove to save others who had been swept out by a vicious undertow. With twelve or fifteen bathers in difficulties at one stage, rescue operations lasted for a full half-hour. ’ Eyewitnesses said the spirit in which rescuers, officers and men together, worked as if going into action, miraculously prevented heavier losses. The victims were soldiers named Flynn, Fulton and Muir and their death was a tragic ending to a bathing party organised by a battery belonging to the oldest field regiment. The surf was treacherous on one part of the beach and there one of three swimmers —not those subsequently drowned—got into difficulties. His companions went to his help, but the ■ water was sweeping out- too strongly. Twenty-five other bathers quickly formed a human chain from the beach by gripping one another’s hands. Then suddenly a heavy wave pounded the r chain r about half-way along, breaking it and carrying a dozen men or more away in the undertow. Some were able to regain the shore, while strong swimmers among the rest did their best to hold the others up. An English major rushed to the scene with a lifebelt and ropes gathered from trucks and tents. By running a lifebelt out, bringing bathers to it singly or in pairs and hauling them ashore, the rescuers made swift and steady progress. Advantage was taken of smoother water alongside the danger spot. An Aucklander, SergeantMajor Rex Lovett, saved four men by swimming across, catching them in turn as the current swept them back, and taking them to safe water. Sergeant Ralph Allen, of Dunedin, remained at the end of the rope the whole time to escort rescued inon ashore and run the lifebelt out again. Unaided. Gunner Richard Burton, formerly of the Imperial Army, saved one man and then applied artificial respiration. Two of the actual victims were taken ashore during the rescue operations. The body of the third was recovered later. English medical officers and orderlies camped in the area, and a New Zealand doctor, earned the party’s gratitude for their immediate aid in caring for the rescued men.