LOSS OF GERMAN VESSEL

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21938, 12 November 1936, Page 13

LOSS OF GERMAN VESSEL

SURVIVOR’S STORY HATCH SMASHED BY SEAS LONDON, November 10. The story of the loss of the German motor-ship Isis, of 4454 tons, which foundered 200 miles off Land’s End during the gale in the Atlantic, was told by the sole survivor of the crew of 40, the 17-year-old cabin boy, Fritz Roethke, when he was interviewed in the sick bay of the liner Western Land on its arrival at Southampton. Roethke jammed himself the bottom of a waterlogged lifeboat and remained there for 12 hours, until rescued by the Western Land. He said that the boat in which he and a few of his shipmates left the Isis capsized, but he scrambled back into the lifeboat with the chief steward as a wave righted it. His companion was drowned when the boat was again capsized. A third wave righted the boat again. Roethke told how the commander of the Isis, in a tearing gale, mustered the crew on the boat deck on c;,mdav evening after the seas had smashed the hatch and filled the forehold. He said that if the bulkhead between the forehold and the next hold lasted the ship might float until the morning, but two hours later the seas smashed the bulkhead. The vessel then listed heavily and later plunged to the bottom.