SURVIVOR’S STORY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 41, 12 November 1936, Page 11

SURVIVOR’S STORY

Loss of German Ship Isis

SEAS SMASH BULKHEAD

London, November 10.

Fritz. Roethke, the sole survivor of the German motor-vessel Isis, which was lost at sea, jammed himself in the bottom of a water-logged lifeboat for 12 hours until he was rescued by the liner Westernland, in whose sick bay he was interviewed at Southampton. He said that the boat in which he and a few of his shipmates quitted the Isis capsized, but he scrambled back into a lifeboat with the chief steward as a wave righted it. His companion was drowned when the boat again capsized. A third wave righted it again. Roethke told how the commander of the Isis, in a tearing gale, mustered the crew on the boat deck on Sunday evening after the seas had smashed the hatch and filled the fore-hold. He said that if the bulkhead between the forehold and the next hold lasted the ship might float until morning, but two hours later the seas smashed the bulkhead and the vessel listed heavily, and later plunged to the bottom.

The Isis (4454 tons) foundered 200 miles west of Land’s End in a violent gale, only one member of the crew of 40 being rescued, a cabin-boy named Roethke, aged 17, who was picked up too exhausted to be able to tell what happened. As the Queen Mary was nearing Southampton she deviated from her course and raced through a gale of 90 miles an hourin response to an SOS message from the Isis, 200 miles west of Land’s End. The liner Westernland reached the position given by the Isis, but reported that no trace of her could be found. She continued to search for lifeboats. The Isis sent a wireless message at 6.15 p.m. that her hatches were stove in and that the crew was preparing to abandon her. The forecastle head was under water.