FISHING JUNK SOUGHT

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28767, 12 December 1958, Page 13

FISHING JUNK SOUGHT

19 Aircraft Join In Search Off Borneo

(HJL. Prm Association—cepvnoM* (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) SINGAPORE, Dec. 11. Nineteen aircraft, a merchant ship, and a tug now are searching the South China Sea for a fishing junk which may hold the secret to the whereabouts bf 13 marooned men and a missing British Shackleton patrol bomber. Two Shackletons and a United States Navy aircraft on patrol north of Borneo on Tuesday sighted the men on a coral atoll. They said a fishing boat with the registration figures YFB9O had been diverted towards the atoll, where 13 men were waving. Earlier, the number was given as 10.

This was the last -heard from one of the Shackletons, a Borneobased aircraft engaged in an antipiracy patrol. . It is believed that the men seen on the atoll may have been survivors of the Australian schooner, lan Crouch) which is missing on its maiden voyage from Hong Kong to Adelaide. Aircraft now engaged in the search for the aircraft and boat are six British Valetta and four Hastings transports, four Shackletons, one Sunderland flying-boat brought in from Hong Kong, two Bristol freighters of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, one Albatross patrol aircraft of the United States Air Force and one Albatross from the Philippines. A merchant ship arid a tug also joined in.

A Royal Air Force spokesman said: “We are particularly anxious to find the boat since it may be able to tell us something of the Shackleton.” The area in which the search is being conducted is from the Balabac Straits, which separate the - south Philippine island of Palawan from the eastern tip of Borneo’s north eoast The registration number of the fishing boat is unknown in Singapore.