SANK AFTER EXPLOSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1940, Page 11

SANK AFTER EXPLOSION

IRISH CHANNEL STEAMER

ALL ON BOARD SAVED

RESCUES BY TRAMP

OTHER VICTIMS OF WAR AT SEA

(B* reieerapl)—Press Association— Copyright.» (Received February 8, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, February 7.

The Munster (4305 tons), the crack ship in the Irish Channel service, sank following an explosion. All the passengers and crew were saved. A tramp steamer rescued the majority. Two hundred have already been landed, and 20 were rushed into hospital suffering from shock and minor injuries.

Able Seaman Clure said: "A terrific explosion occurred, and boiling water and galley fixtures were flung everywhere. My life-boat became waterlogged and we were all flung into the water. I was pulled into a motor-boat."

He added that Captain Paisley did not want to leave the bridge, although he was injured. Finally he was persuaded to enter a boat. Distress flares from the Munster attracted another ship eight miles away and it co-operated with the tramp in the rescue work. The Munster sank in an hour and a half.

Members of the crew declared that women and children among the passengers all behaved with perfect calm. A 16-year-old deck boy found the captain on the bridge with his arm broken in two places. He helped the captain to fit on a lifebelt and persuaded him to leave the ship. ... ~-.

Nineteen persons are believed to be missing from the Estonian cargo vessel Anu (1421 tons), which was mined in the North Sea. Five of the crew and two women were rescued.

The British steamer Armania Star (?) was torpedoed without warning off Lisbon on February 3. The crew were rescued. The tanker British Councillor (7048 tons) has been mined and sunk in the North Sea. The crew of 45 were rescued and six were admitted to hospital, i The explosion of a German mine destroyed the middle section of an east coast pier, wrecking a theatre built on it. The whole district was shaken and windows on the seafront smashed.

Coastguards found a second mine three miles away, and a third was washed up on a beach on the southeast coast. Police formed a cordon round the town and stopped traffic.