SALVAGE FOR SCRAP.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20271, 13 August 1937, Page 10

SALVAGE FOR SCRAP.

WARTIME HOSPITAL BHIP. BROKEN UP UNDER WATER. The Great War hospital ship Letitia will be raised in parts from her grave in 80 feet of water off the mouth of Halifax Harbour, if present plans can be carried out. It is thought present prices of scrap metal will justify salvaging the ship, which will be broken up under water and sold to British interests. The 11.000-ton Letitia grounded near Portuguese Gove off the entrance to Halifax Harbour during a dense fog in 1016. Five hundred wounded soldiers and her crew of 250 were brought safely to shore before the ship went down. Disaster overtook the gleaming white hospital craft quickly, when she had arrived almost at her destination. Captain Mac Neil had sailed his vessel safely across the Atlantic and It was while she was in charge of a pilot that she ran aground. First intimation that all was not well came when Captain Mac Neil called the attention of the pilot to nets of fishermen which could be seen through the fog and showed the ship off her course. A moment later a huge rock was Jutting through ths plates -of No. 2 hold. Crisp orders soon began the evacuallon of the doomed vessel with such coolness and efficiency that every one of the 500 wounded men and the crew of 250 reached shore safely. Hardly had the Letitia been abandoned than the fog cleared over a calm sea. The vessel staged on the rock for five, days before she finally broke in two and sank. The forecastle remained in view for more than a year before it too disappeared beneath the waves.