LIFE OF SHIPMATE SAVED

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23942, 8 May 1943, Page 5

LIFE OF SHIPMATE SAVED

CHRISTCHURCH MAN’S ACTION SHIP TORPEDOED OFF AUSTRALIA (Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 12.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, May 7. Mr R. J. Corson-Crook, greaser, of Vernon terrace, St. Martins, Christchurch, saved the life of one of bin mates* when an Allied freighter waa sunk off the eastern Australian coast during the last few weeks. The sinking was one of the five announced by General MacArthur’s communique today. So steeply did the freighter list after being torpedoed that the lifeboats oil one side could not be launched. Another was so damaged that it broke up in the water, half an hour after it was launched, leaving its five occupants in the sea, clinging to wreckage. Most of the survivors drifted about on the wreckage and were picked up about three miles from the spot where the ship sank. With another New Zealander, Mr J. Cromie, a greaser, Mr Corson-Crook was in this lifeboat. One of the other three men could not swim and Mr Corson-Crook supported him in the water on a makeshift raft of stray dunnage until a rescue ship came along. This was about eight hours after the sinking. Nobody on the shipi saw the attacking submarine, but the man on watch sighted the wake of the torpedo a few seconds before it struck. A heavy see was running. „