PACIFIC SINKING

Grey River Argus, 19 March 1942, Page 5

PACIFIC SINKING

SURVIVORS’ VOYAGE

Hawaii to Fiji

IN OPEN BOAT.

[Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] (Rec. 11.15.) SUVA, March 18. The story of great hardships in a thirty-eight-day voyage in an opep lifeboat is told by survivors of the “Donerail,” sunk two hundred miles from Hawaii two days after the Pearl Harbour raid. The “Donerail,” bound for Suva from Vancouver, nearly rammed a submarine on the surface at nine o’clock at night. The submarine crash-dived, but later surfaced and shelled the boat-deck, the torpedo missing. Twenty-four out of_ forty-two on board were killed by seven shells which hit the boat. Passengers, comprising two women and five men, and an eighteen-months-old child, were killed outright while sitting in a swung-out lifeboat, which was hit by a shell. Mr M. Chambers, of Sydney, who was a member of the crew, was the only, survivor from this boat.

The twenty-four remaining members of the crew got away in a bad-ly-holed steel life-boat, which sank to the gunwales, air tanks keeping the craft awash. The castaways worked for two days stuffing the holes with clothing to gain free-i board. They battled with the gale for a week, trying to make for Hawaii, but abandoned the attempt owing to the weather, and made for Tarawa, where they landed after sailing about two thousand miles. The food and water in the boat was ruined by immersion, so the survivor’s existed on flying fiph, salt water, smoked biscuits, vitamin tablets, and tinned milk. Water was caught in the sales from the constant rain. Heavy gales were experienced throughout, and the Captain was washed overboard and drowned. Sixteen others died of exposure and starvation, and only seven reached land. All were Danes, with the exception of Chambers. . The mate was the only officer saved.

The Japanese had already landed and left Tarawa before the arrival of the castaways, but another party arrived while they were there. Chambers and an officer from another ship, and a Tarawa civilian set out in a lagoon boat with the intention of making Fiji, but they landed at Nanouti, where the rest of the “Donerail” party caught up, having come on by motor-boat.

“It was a riskv trip in the lagoon boat, but better than the life-boat, said Mr Chambers, “as we were able to land at islands en route for food and water.”

Another story of a long voyage in a small boat is told by the survivors of the “Prusa,” torpedoed without warning early in the morning in the vicinity of Hawaii. Ten men were killed by the explosion, and twentyfour escaped in two liftboats. One has since not been heard of. In the other boat one died, eleven surviving. It was thirty-one and a-half days at sea, sailing twenty-five hundred miles to land on the Gilbert Group. There was plenty of food and water, but extremely bad weather was experienced throughout.-