SHIP OFF AUSTRALIA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 41, 28 November 1940, Page 6

SHIP OFF AUSTRALIA.

FATE OP THE PORT BRISBANE.

PROBABLY ALSO THE MAIMOA.

gOMEr OF CREW 1 NOW MISSING.

BELIEVED TO BE PRISONERS

(United Press Association-Copyright.;

(Received This Day, 1 p.m.)

CANBERRA, This Day

The. Minister for the. Navy (Mr W. M. Hughes) announced last night that an enemy raider five days ago sank the Port Brisbane and' probably the Maimqa, off the Australian coast. Twenty-seven members of the crew of the Port Brisbane reached an Australian port aboard an Australian warship. The r,eriiainder of the crew are believed to be held prisoner aboard the raider, which escaped. An empty lifeboat from the Maimoa was picked up, and it is presumed that the crew of the ship are prisoners on the raider.

The port Brisbane was attacked at: night in mid-ocean. Her wireless apparatus was disabled and her steeringgear put out of action. The vessel was time-bombed and torpedoed. Those who reached. Australia escaped under cover of darkness.

Among the personnel of the Port Brisbane taken prisoner on the raider is a, woman passenger.

Survivors from the Port. Brisbane told a dramatic story of their escape in a lifeboat. The raider opened , fire at a range of little more than a mile. The third; shell wrecked the wireless room and the fourth hit the bridge, disabling the steering-gear. Three boats were launched and the ship was abandoned. The occupants of two boats were taken prisoner, but the third boat escaped in the darkness. The official description of the raider tallies remarkably with the descriptions given earlier by the Admiralty of the German raider known, for identifi- ; cation purposes, as the Narvik, which has already sunk 47,641 tons of shipping.