P. & 0. LOSSES FROM THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3168, 20 August 1917, Page 6

P. & 0. LOSSES FROM THE WAR

4 The P. -and 0. Company has been a heavy sufferer by the war, vessels, principally employed in the Australian service, having met disaster since Hie outbreak of hostilities. Including the latest victims, the tonnage destroyed amounts in the aggregate to well over 100,000 tons. Towards the end of lillii the company's steamer Rocot.ra was wrecked on .the coast (f ■France. Not long v afterwards, on New Year's Day, 191 R. tho Persia fell a victim to a torpedo launched, it was renorted, by a Turkish submarine, in the Mediterranean, while near Port Said. •.Vho death roll was high, no fewer than 335 persons perishing, comprising 119 passengers, 50 European members of. tho crew, and 16G Lascars. Following this disaster was tho loss of the M a '°j n ' which struck a mine in the -English Channel, near Dover, and sank. Tn this disaster 147 lives were lost. Tho Geelons, formerly belonging to Lund's Blue Anchor Line, but afterwards one of the P. and O. branch service fleet, collided with an Admiralty vessel in the Mediterranean and foundered. In November, 1916, also in the Mediterranean the Arabia was torpedoed, but all the passengers and crew were saved. The Ballarat, another P. and 0. branch liner, was torpedoed in the English Channel on .Anril 25 of the present year. She had on board a number of troop?, nil of whom, with the crew, were-saved. Then there was the sinking of the 15,300 ton liner Medina, which was followed bV the Mongolia disaster. The Mnnixnlin was mined in the Indian Ocean, off Bombay, about six weeks ago. Several of thi> crew wore drowned, and one nr two of the prisscii-TPr?. inclmlint Mr. V. E. Winclie-ombf. y.L.r.. of S\-d----liov, subsequently died from Ihe effects of the to which they had been subjected. The Monsara wus sunk in the vicinity of the Straits of Messina, between Italy and Sicily, early last month. The Moolhn met her fate, in tho Medireriiniipnii. while Homeward bound from Australia a few days ago. '