DOOMED LINER

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1941, Page 2

DOOMED LINER

LAST OF EMPRESS OF BRITAIN. “Well, another couple of watches should see this trip through. How long in the good old home port this time? What’s the betting?” It was (writes M. Watson, in the “Daily Telegraph”) the liner’s messroom; 8.30 or so, on the morning of October 25. Homeward-bound after three months’ absence. “Precious short, judging by the way we’ve been chased home. Looks like a quick turn round.” “And surely a bit of leave.” Within an hour, suddenly and without warning, there appeared a plane, out of the clouds. Too far off to see her markings. Friend or foe? She flew past, circled round, was almost over the stern before the markings could be distinguished. Then the anti-aircraft guns went into action. The enemy flew thq full length of the ship, each bomb a bull’s eye. Never had a Nazi such luck. Fires spread and met. Within half an hour the Empress of Britain was blazing from end to end. Up on the navigation bridge, the captain; down in the engine room the watch —awaiting his final word “F.W.E.” (finished with engines). No one left his post; they could trust that man standing up there on the burning bridge to tell them when to quit. And the gallant captain on the bridge did not trust in vain the men below to keep the engines running up to the fateful “F.W.E.” Some of the lifeboats and the rope-laddders were burning fiercely, so men dropped lifelines to the water. Those for whom there remained no more to do, and those who must immediately. escape the flames began to go over the side; but with a sailor s wisdom, those who could remain held back, looking out for any sign of rescue before taking a gamblers plunge. The ship’s doctor, a dauntless Canadian, stuck to his dispensary, attending to the sick and wounded, going about his duties heedless of the explosions from the ship’s magazine of anti-aircraft shells. Not until his stretcher cases had been lowered to the boats did he leave the ship. Then he continued to work, transferring from one boat to another as they claimed his help. The after end of the ship was now clear of passengers and crew. The fire was spreading forward and no boats were’ in sight. The men who were left busied themselves making I’clfts Below, two lifeboats floated helplessly; four men in each were trying in vain to bring the heavy boats round to their comrades’ rescue. Others, working desperately, repaired a damaged motor boat at length, and it towed thq lifeboats to where the men could reach them. I heard the story of the heroism of one pf the electricians. Knowing that in, the workingalley way about 50 men were caught,, he tried, to force his way to them through smoke and fumes. Then, when this failed,_ he undertook with a sailor, a perilous climb to the boat deck, from which they managed to lower a. lifeboat so that those 50 should be enabled to escape through a side door opening on to the sea from the. alleyway. There were many other tales, but only half told. The men in this sister of the Silent Service ,are far from willing to talk much, especially if the talk seems to lead them to the verge of self-praise. So it was in vain that I tried to learn some things which will for ever be suppressed. Yet 1 learned enough to prove that the men of the Empress of Britain were worthy of their noble ship—flagship of her line and the largest and .fastest of all ships plying between two ports of the British Empire. Two years and a-half it took to build the Empres of Britain, and the cost was over £2,500,000. By the misfortune of war—a mischance in a million —it took but a. brief halfhour for the enemy to compass her destruction,