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Greymouth Evening Star, 21 March 1946, Page 9

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CAPTURED AIRMEN ON . U-BOAT

A LUCKY NEW ZEALANDER

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 20. To be torpedoed on the Jiner “Laconia” 800 miles from Freetown, and to be picked up by an Italian submarine was the experience of Flight Lieutenant F. Penman, of Invercargill. He returned to-day on the Maunganui. . ■ . He had ferried a Wellington bomber from Britain to the Middle East and was on the way home by sea to repeat the process in September, 1942, when his ferry career was cut short by a torpedo. “I hung on to the raft with some others for a long time,” said Flight Lieutenant Penman, “and we were picked up the following day by a Üboat, which was actually the one that torpedoed us. The commander picked up as many of us as he could. He said a Vichy cruiser was coming from Dakar to pick up the others. Then an American Liberator came over and bombed us. The commander put us all on deck. He said: ‘Sorry—l have done what I can.’ ” The submarine then, submerged. It left us in the- water. After five or six hours an Italian submarine came along. We struck out for that. There were about 50 of us' originally, but only about 24 managed to reach the Italians.”

Flight Lieutenant Penman and another officer were taßen. inside by the Italians and given food and clothing. Others were left on deck. When they woke up three days later they found the others had gone. “The commander did not tell us what happened to the rest of the boys,” Flight Lieutenant Penman ■continued, “but we had our suspicions that they were ditched when the U-boat submerged. They may have been put aboard the cruiser, however, because some Italian prisoners that we had on board when we were torpedoed were also picked up and were passed over to her.” He said they spent 32 days on the submarine without incident, except for being, depth-charged by the R.A.F. for four days in the Bay of Biscay. The submarine appeared to be a training vessel. They did make one pass at a merchant ship, but just as they were in position, a German submarine got it from the other side. Eventually the submarine put in at Bordeaux, where the prisoners were kept under Italian supervision. Later they spent 11 months in Italy. They were then transferred to Germany, and they were not released until Germany capitulated.