SHARK-INFESTED SEA

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 May 1942, Page 4

SHARK-INFESTED SEA

CASTAWAYS WHO VANISHED

LOS ANGELES, March 17. Survivors from two torpedoed ships [who arrived at San Juan the other day told dramatic stories of spending five days on a raft surrouncied by sharks, and watching their fellows go insane and slip into the water whileother ships and aeroplanes came tantalisingly near, but failed to see their frantic signals. Of the 118 passengers and crew of the two small ships,. 90 have reached Haitian and Cuban ports safely. Coated with oil, John R. Taurin, of Baltimore, a quartermaster, and Seaman Francis Rooney, told of their experiences on a hatch cover on which they tossed from midnight Friday, March 6, when their ship was torpedoed, until Wednesday, they were picked up by a naval vessel.

Taurin said he was sure the “popping and whistling” sounds immediately after the torpedoing were incendiary shells fired by the enemy to set fire to oil on the water. Unable to reach the lifeboats because of fireamidships, he, Rooney, and a Puerto Rican threw a hatch cover overboard and swam to it. On Monday morning the Puerto Rican went “out of his head” and slipped off the raft after announcing that he was tired and was “going to get a room somewhere.”

Speaking of some of the missing. Taurin said the waters were full of sharks. “After- the torpedoing we saw some 25 persons afloat on hatchboards on the calm sea in the bright moonlight. Next morning we saw all the hatchboards, but no one on :hem,” he added.