THRILLING RESCUE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1942, Page 5

THRILLING RESCUE

NAVAL MEN'S BRAVERY

(Rec. 1 p.m.)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9. The Navy Department said that the rescue of those on board the Wakefield was effected in a thrilling and daring manner by the warships protecting the convoy in which the Wakefield was travelling to an east coast port. A cruiser manoeuvred its bow athwart the transport's stern, and a destroyer went alongside the Wakefield. Thus the passengers were transferred rapidly from the blazing liner.

Describing 20 minutes of drama aboard the flame-swept ship, survivors said that the personnel of the cruiser and the destroyer displayed exceptional bravery, effecting the rescue work swiftly and calmly. Fire spread in two or three minutes from end to end of the ship. The destroyer was thrown repeatedly against the Wakefleld's high sides, smashing the superstructure, but the captajn of the destroyer held her in while thp gun crews tossed shells overboard. Cargo nets were lowered, and the passengers were transferred safely. One survivor said he was sure that many of the crew had been burned, the fire spread so amazingly. Another survivor said that he heard a muffled explosion far below the deck, and then the fire spread as though in a barn full of hay. and the crew began tossing explosives overboard. There was a tense moment when un officer on the bridge asked if the magazine had been flooded That was the first they knew of a magazine. The reply was: "Yes, it is flooded."