CANADIAN PLUCK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 9

CANADIAN PLUCK

MEN STAY ON BURNING SHIP

The story can now be told of how the Canadian destroyer Saugenay, ;in spite of being torpedoed by a submarine, . which the Germans described as Italian, eventually made, port under her own steam, says the London "Daily Telegraph."

The destroyer was torpedoed ..in the Atlantic, twenty-one men being killed and the paint store and one of the messes being set on fire. -

In spite of the flames the crew heroically manned the guns, firing. at the submarine till it submerged. Then they set to work to put out the fire". One member of the crew said: "The officers stripped to the waist just like the able-bodied seamen in an endeavour to control the blaze. As soon as we got one section of the fire reasonably damped down another would spring up worse than before. The lower mess 'was a mass of- flames, but, in spite of all the water we poured into it, it still burned away merrily.''

The crew kept up these efforts until a British warship came to the rescue. The fire was not yet under control so the captain decided to evacuate the ship. i

He still thought, however, there might' be a chance to save her, so: lie asked for twenty volunteers to form a skeleton crew. There'was no difficulty in getting the twenty men,, but, it was only after ■ the lifeboats had put; off that thirty r seven others were discovered hiding in -the ship.

They did not want to leave her as long as there was a chance of saving her. It was many hours before the last burning piece of timber was extinguished. j^__