NARROW ESCAPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1941, Page 10

NARROW ESCAPE

GALLEY WRECKED BY SHELL

Mr. C. Foss, chief cook on the Komata, had. a .narrow escape. He said he had hardly left the galley in response to the order to proceed to lifeboat stations when a German shell went right through the galley, completely wrecking it. "We were treated well aboard the German ship," he said, "but the food was not much good. It was principally boiled rice and macaroni."

As is the case with the remainder of the Komata's crew, one encounter with German raiders has not daunted Mr. Foss. He said he was going to set about at once finding another seagoing job.

According to Mr. P. Lester, the survivors from the Komata were first of all taken aboard the raider Manyo Maru. They were there only five

minutes when they were told they could return to the Komata to get some of their gear. Back on their own ship they were allowed ten minutes to collect a few things. "First of all I grabbed tobacco and cigarette papers," he said. "The German sailors were at our elbows all the time telling us to hurry."

Mr. A. Sanders, a deck boy,' had just emptied a bucket of slops overboard when the first German shell struck the bridge of the Komata near him. "I thought first of all something had gone wrong with the engines," he said, "for at that stage I had not spotted the raiders. Then the second shell arrived and I did not waste much time in that part of the ship. Later another member of the crew and I went forward and watched the raiders from there.

"Shell splinters or shrapnel shot holes in some of the boats. We put off for the raider Manyo Maru in one and had to bail hard all the way. As the last man was climbing up the rope ladder to the deck of the • raider our ship's boat sank."

Only some of the officers of the Komata who remained on the German raider were present at the funeral of the second officer (Mr. J. L. Hughes), who died of wounds and was buried at sea from the enemy ship.

to submit. The boarding party from the. raider was well trained, and the men carried implements for opening safes and lockers. They cleared the prize of anything likely to be useful to them and this was transferred to the raider as soon as the captured crew had been taken across.

Mr. Estrop said he did not know how the raider had approached the Turakina, but it was clear that that ship, had put, up a good, fight. He had seen a number of wounded Germans in the hospital of the raider and some of them had been badly smashed up by the Turakina's fire. There had been a considerable amount of sickness among the prisoners, Mr. Estrop said, but most of it had been contracted after they landed at Emira, where they were exposed to malarial infection by the mosquitoes. He had had a bout of malaria, but recovered in time to return to New Zealand with the rest of the crew. Some of the other prisoners were still in hospital in Australia.