DELIBERATE MURDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 March 1942, Page 3

DELIBERATE MURDER

JAPANESE SUBMARINE RAMS LIFEBOATS ONLY TWELVE SURVIVORS. FROM COMPLEMENT OF 98. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 24. A report has now been received in London on the circumstances in which the British steamship Kwantung, of 2626 tons, was sunk south of Java on January 4. There are only 12 known survivors out of a total complement of 98. The Kwantung was torpedoed without warning in the early morning. The crew took to the four boats and made sail, setting a course for the nearest land independently. Shortly afterward the Japanese U-boat surfaced, made for the master’s boat with machine-guns trained on it, and deliberately rammed it amidships. The survivors were left floating on pieces of shattered lifeboat. The chief officer of the Kwantung, who was in charge of another boat, and had seen the attack on the master’s lifeboat, at once put about and sailed toward him. While he was picking up 12 survivors from the 25 original occupants of the boat, the Japanese U-boat reappeared and destroyed the second lifeboat in the same way. No other lifeboats being in sight, the U-boat then submerged, and was not seen again. After the second attack only 13 men were left alive, and all were more or less injured. It was then about 8 a.m., and they floated all that day and the following night on two portions of the last lifeboat, which continually capsized. One of the survivors died during the afternoon of that day. At about noon on the second day a steamer sighted the survivors and picked them up.