“GAP” VICTIM

Grey River Argus, 8 April 1927, Page 6

“GAP” VICTIM

MAN OF 86 YEARS. HUGE SHARK CAUSES THRILLS. The body of Charles Bennett, aged 86, who jumped over “The Gap,” near Sydney recently. was recovered the following day under thrilling circumstances. Bennett is believed to have fallen from the top shortly after 5.30 p.m. The police, who were informed, looked down the cliffs, and saw the body on the rocks about 200 ft below. Darkness, however, set in and it was then too late to recover it. Next morning at daylight a party of police, with residents, went to “The Gap,” where they could still see the body, which was in the same position as the previous night. It was decided to make an effort to recover it on the ocean side. Sergeant Strong was helped out with difficulty by William Love, Samuel love and Jack Ryles, a man-0 ’-warsnran, who showed great courage in subsequent efforts. The party went around in n launch from Watson’s Bay to a point opposite where the Dunbar was wreck ed at ‘The Gap.” The sea was running high, and it was a hard job to keep the boat close in to the rocks. However the trouble was overcome, and Ryles, with a rope around his waist, jumped into the waves and, swimming as strongly as he could, battled ahead Knocked back several times by the receding waters of a strong high swell Ryles, who is an unusually strong man kept going. At one stage the men in the boat became alarmed owing to si huge shark appearing not many yards away. The monster swam around foi

several minutes, but Ryles, ignorant of his additional danger, kept swimming, and eventually reached one of the rocks. He had been half-an-hour in the water. Dodging the heavy seas, he managed to get from rock to rock, and in the end climbed 20ft up to where the body lay. Signalling to those above, he received in a few seconds a large piece of canvas and some ropes. Fixing the canvas around the body, he tied it up and gave the signal to those above. Three policemen and about 20 residents hauled the body to the top. After attending to the body Ryles had to swim back to the launch, which was about 70yds, .from the shore, lie did not know until he was pulled from rhe water that a shark was cruising about the locality. An attache case found on the top of “The Gap” contained several letters from relatives and also some business papers. Bennett was an Englishman, and some years ago occupied a cottage just opposite the spot over which he fell. ' lie was a photographer in Sydney some years ago.