TOLL OF U-BOATS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 107, 7 May 1943, Page 3

TOLL OF U-BOATS

MID-ATLANTIC DRAMA Christchurch Flyer In Rescue Episode N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, May 6. Flying-Officer J. N. Robinson, of Christchurch, was a member of the crew in a Coastal Command Liberator which recently found the survivors of a British merchantman on the Atlantic, 500 miles from land. A U-boat was lurking near them. The Liberator guided a naval sloop to their rescue and, with the exception of a clergyman who died aboard the sloop, all were landed safely at a British port. Flying-Officer Robinson said: "The survivors, passengers and crew were in lifeboats in a choppy sea. The boats had been roped together. We found them after a flight of six hours and dropped them food and supplies, also a note telling them they would be rescued before dark. There was an enormous patch of oil, roughly eight miles long and two miles wide. "We went down low when we saw the lifeboats. It gave us a tremendous kick to see men and women stand up in the boats and cheer. It was during one of our trips between the lifeboats and the sloop that we sighted a U-boat. We went down to attack, but it disappeared before we could get in position. "We learned later that there were children in the lifeboats who, with women, behaved magnificently and we were very pleased to hear, when being interrogated, that everyone had been picked up by the sloop."