SUNK IN FEBRUARY
EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA MOST OF THOSE ON BOARD SAVED. GALLANT WORK BY SLOOP YARRA. I (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.30 p.m.) OTTAWA, May 19. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company announces that the Admiralty has granted permision for the disclosure of the news that the 17,000-tcn liner Empress of Australia was sunk by Japanese divebombers, near Sumatra, whilst transporting troops to Singapore. Most of the 2,500 Imperial troops on board were saved. The Japanese dropped 80 bombs and scored five direct hits which soon set the whole ship aflame. About a hundred seamen escaped, but 44 are known to have been lost. Escape by lifeboat was impossible, for the boats too were burned. The little Australian sloop Yarra was the heroine of the rescue. Coming alongside the blazing liner, she took the troops off, at the same time firing constantly at the enemy bombers. The sloop Yarra was herself later lost in the Battle of the Java Sea.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1942, Page 4
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162SUNK IN FEBRUARY Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1942, Page 4
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