RESCUE FROM TANKER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 272, 17 November 1941, Page 7

RESCUE FROM TANKER

Survivers Of One of Strangest Episodes Of The Sea PERCHED OX SHIP'S STEM Rec. 9.30 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. 16. For 15 hours an officer and an able seaman clung perched astride the stem-piece of a tanker which had been blown in two and was reeling and swaying 100 ft above the sea. The tanker had died hard. Hour after hour her gun crews fought back at the attacking submarine. Three torpedoes had sadlv battered her until she doubled up. but still she held together. It was the fourth torpedo which broke her in two. When this happened only two men were on the forepart—«he third officer, Mr. G. Todd, of Edinburgh, and Able Seaman T. Clayton. Mr. Todd actually had the teakwood rail shattered under his hands when the torpedo struck.

As the loreparl rose slowly into the air, the two men climbed further and further toward her bows. In the end this part of the vessel floated vertically and the third officer and the seaman climbed over the rail and sat astride the stem 100 ft above the sea.

They clung, to their dizzy perch until sighted by an escort vessel which had picked up the other survivors. A volunteer crew rowed over and took a loose turn round the head of the forestav. THe foremast by this time lay dipping in the water. Then Mr. Todd and Able Seaman Clayton swung hand over hand down the forestav and dropped safely into the boat. They had survived one of the strangest escapades in the history of the sea.