EATEN BY SHARKS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 7, 3 October 1917, Page 3

EATEN BY SHARKS

4 •"' VIC " Details of th* circumstances of the torpedoing of the steamer Manston, savs Keuter, provide another instance ol the barbarity displayed by German submarine commanders. The vessel, was torpedoed early in tl\e morning of July 15. After the ship had disappeared, the cook, who had jumped overboard with a natch, counted'seventeen men clinging to the wreckage. The submarine, a large cratt painted jet black, came to the surface in the midst of her struggling.and drownin-' victims. Tho latter noticed e trapdoor open in the conmng-tower of the TJ-boat and an officer stood looking through -Ms binoculars for several minutes at tbe struggling forms, in the-water. The German officer silently ignored nil appeals for assistance, although the™ was no other vessel in sight, and tlie whole of the crew of the Manston conld .easily have been rescued by the submarine in a few minutes. At this moment one of the drowning men disappeared with a piercing scream, and a moment later another vanished in the same way. Ihe horror of the situation had .been enhanced by tlie arrival on the scene of a school of sharks. All tlie brave men of the Mariston, except one, suffered a horrible death in the jaws of these monsters. The scene was too rnncn wen. for the TJ-boat commander, for he closed the trap-door of the conning tower and submerged- his vessel. Fifteen hours later the sole survivor of the tragedy was rescued by a British merchant vessel. [The Mariston was a steel screw steamer of 2900 tons, built in 1915 by Russe and Co., Glasgow, for W. S. Miller and Co.j -