LUCKY ATLANTIC ADVENTURE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 286, 30 August 1941, Page 9

LUCKY ATLANTIC ADVENTURE

Airmen Find Lifeboat RESCUED AFTER NINE DAYS

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received August 29, 7.30 p.m.) RUGBY, August 28.

The story of a lucky Atlantic adventure by a party of airmen was told today. With petrol for only five minutes’ flying left, no ship in sight, and land many miles away, the outlook seemed grim for the crew of a naval aircraft away out over the Atlantic. The aircraft, which had been out on patrol in search of an enemy ship, ran into bad weather and failed to find the carrier from which it was operating. Just at the moment when the aircraft was down to a few hundred feet an empty lifeboat was sighted. The pilot was able to put the plane down on the water close to the boat and the three airmen swam across. Their luck still held, for they were delighted to find that the lifeboat contained ample supplies of blankets, food, water, cigarettes and even a bottle of brandy. There was also a mast, a sail and a boat’s compass, all in good condition. So the airmen shipped the mast and set sail, shaping a course for land. On the fifth day of the voyage they came up with a lifeboat carrying shipwrecked Danish seamen. The airmen handed over food and cigarettes to the sailors, but as they could not agree on the best course to steer the boats parted company. On their ninth day in the boat the airmen saw a ship loom up out of a thick mist. They fired verey lights to attract attention and were rescued. Apart from slightly swollen feet due to exposure, the airmen were little the worse for their adventure. They found they had sailed 200 miles toward land. The lucky lifeboat was later identified as coming from a ship which had been torpedoed. An Adventurous Voyage.

An adventurous voyage to England from Gibraltar by two Royal Canadian Engineers, Lieutenant Ames and Sapper Ross, who left Gibraltar in a warship, has just been told. After some days at sea their ship was ordered to join iu the chase for the German battleship Bismarck, and Lieutenant Ames spent 30 hours on the bridge, following the operations from start to finish. Then, instead of going on to England, the warship started to hunt for German supply ships, during which the Canadian officer was in charge of two anti-aircraft guns. After some success, they put in at a West African port, where British colonial officials welcomed the first Canadians they had seen there, and Sapper Ross made friends with Free French soldiers. Eventually a destroyer came into port, and in this they sailed to another port, where they joined a ship in a convoy. The convoy was attacked by German submarines, but after a heated battle warships drove them oft without British losses. The ship eventually landed them back in Gibraltar, from where they had started over live weeks before. Shortly afterward the Canadians boarded, tlie ship which brought back the British Embassy staff from Yugoslavia. Despite an attack by German aircraft, they eventually arrived safely in England, having travelled 19,000 miles instead of 1100 miles.