RAMMED CRUISER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1945, Page 6

RAMMED CRUISER

VICTIM OF QUEEN MARY

STORY OF LOOK-OUT (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.) Rec. 1 p.m. SYDNEY, May 25. An eye-witness account of the sinking of the cruiser Curacoa in a collision with the 81,00U-ton ; Queen Mary —almost 20 times her size—has been given here by E. C. Lousada, an Australian seaman. Lousada was one of the two regular look-out men on duty on the Queen Mary when the collision occurred. From the crow's nest on the Queen Mary's foremast, 140 feet above water, he saw the bow of the liner cut the 4200-ton cruiser in two. Lousada, who is now mate of an Australian coaster, said the Curacoa and five destroyers joined the Queen Mary on the morning of the collision. The destroyers took station in a semicircle about five, miles ahead of the liner and the cruiser held a direct course astern. The day was bright and sunny. The Curacoa was doing about 22 knots and the Queen Mary was zig-zagging at about 28 knots, crossing and re-cross-ing the cruiser's course, sometimes passing ahead of her and sometimes astern. v.'he Queen Mary's stem struck the side of the Curacoa at 2.12 p.m. The terrific impact broke, the cruiser *in two. Those on board the Queen Mary could see the heads of survivors bobbing as they tried to keep afloat, but they were soon only black dots in the I distance as the liner sped on her way. Because the destroyers were so far ahead at the time of the collision, the men rescued were in the water for almost two hours before being picked up. The water was terribly cold, and many who survived the actual collision were unable to hold on.to the rafts and wreckage and drowned. Lousada said that he was puzzled by the cabled reports that the collision occurred when the vessels changed course after a U-boat alarm. He had not heard the alarm bells sounded nor seen the gun crews running to action stations as they did immediately when an alarm was given.