SUNK BY BOMBERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1942, Page 3

SUNK BY BOMBERS

AT DISTANCE FROM COAST OF AUSTRALIA ALLIED VESSEL ENEMY PLANE CRASHES ON DECK. SURVIVORS PICKED UP. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) SYDNEY, May 25. Attacked by waves of Japanese bombers several hundred miles off the Australian coast, an Allied vessel had io be abandoned after one plane, hit by anti-aircraft fire, dived like a blazing comet and crashed on the deck. The survivors, many of them injured, were picked up ,by an Allied warship and landed at an Australian port. Out of the ship’s crew of more than 200 fewer than 100 are believed to have been saved. Practically all the men on deck at the time of the attacks were killed or wounded by bombs, while many of those below were badly hurt by flame or scalded by escaping steam. “The Japanese got us with about 10 bombs, apart from the plane crashing on the deck, but I reckon we got about nine of them,” said one member of the crew who suffered a fractured pelvis and scalds. , “The pilot of the plane which crashed on deck, came straight at us in a perfect dive. There was an explosion when he struck, and I believe everybody aft was killed. There was just one sheet of flame across the deck, The ship was well ablaze when the survivors abandoned her.” . After drifting on rafts and in a- lifeboat for several days, the crew- were spotted by an Allied plane and later a destroyer rescued them. The ship was beyond salvage and was sunk by gunfire.