BODIES OF THE VICTIMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 131, 6 June 1939, Page 9

BODIES OF THE VICTIMS

RECOVERY NOT DESIRED

INVENTOR'S THEORY

ESCAPE DIFFICULTIES

(Independent Cable Service.)

LONDON, June 5.. The "widows and mothers of the ; en who died in the Thetis do not want the bodies brought up. They prefer that the bodies should not be disturbed, as there is no desire for the further painful ordeals of inquests, heart-breaking identifications, long lines of coffins, and funerals with full naval honours. The builders,of the submarine, Cammell Laird and Company, are seeing that the dependants of their 25 employees on board shall not want.

Three deep-sea divers today found the Thetis lying on sand and mud on an even keel. The divers saw no wreck which the Thetis might have hit in submerging.

Sir Robert Davis, inventor of the escape apparatus, expresses the opinion that the angle in which the submarine lay did not account for the failure of the attempts to escape, but he believes that, as the forward escape, hatch was blocked, the angle of the ship may have made it extremely difficult to reach the second chamber.

Expert salvagers say that it is impossible to tell when the submarine will be beached —perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a fortnight, and possibly never.

It is believed there are at least 400 dependant relatives of the men in the submarine, including 250 wives and children. Some of the best naval brains and workmen of Britain perished in the disaster.