TAKEN INTO PORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1943, Page 4

TAKEN INTO PORT

STERN HALF OF AMERICAN DESTROYER FOLLOWING ON COLLISION WITH TANKER. YOUNG OFFICER TAKES COMMAND. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) NEW YORK, November 28. The rear half of a United States destroyer which was cult" in two in a collision was towed 100 miles to port. A new forward half is being fitted to the vessel, which will soon be ready for service again. The destroyer, the Murphy, was run down off the east coast by a heavy tanker. The forward part of the destroyer sank in ten minutes. The rear section remained afloat. A young ensign with less than a year’s navy experience took command and ordered searchlights to be turned on 111 survivors swimming in thousands of gallons of oil to which rescuing destroyers raced. The ensign next directed the crew to extinguish the boiler fire, which threatened to set the oil on fire. Temporary repairs were then, made and by midnight, three hours after the collision, the half destroyer was being towed to New York, which was reached within 24 hours. It was the smallest section of a destroyer ever pulled into any port. Thirty-one members of the crew are. missing. .