U.S. DESTROYER SUNK

Grey River Argus, 15 May 1944, Page 2

U.S. DESTROYER SUNK

BY U-BOAT IN ATLANTIC. NEW YORK, May 12. There were only seven survivors or the crew of a United States destroyer, the “Leopold,” which was reported sunk in the Atlantic by U-boats 'in a Navy communique yesterday, says the Washington correspondent of the Associated Press. Survivors told how forty men clung to the destroyer’s severed stern ana watched another escort speed on. As the 50-foot waves lashed the wreckage, the men in this ship called out, “We are dodging torpedoes. God bless you. We will be back.”

Eighteen men struggled to one raft, but only four were picked up. Twenty men reached another raft, but only three of them were rescued. One man was pinned in the galley by wreckage and begged to be shot, but eventually he was freed, only to die in the water. The men were washed off the stern one by one until the wreckage finally sank. The highest rank among the men saved was the chief commissionary steward.