AIRCRAFT CARRIER SABOTAGED IN ENGLAND

Grey River Argus, 17 December 1948, Page 4

AIRCRAFT CARRIER SABOTAGED IN ENGLAND

On Eve of Being Handed Over to Australia (Rec. 10.30). LONDON, December 16. Following on reports, which are current in Devonport, of sabotage in the engine room of the new aircraft carrier, Terrible, which is due to be handed over to the Royal Navy to-day, and is to be re-named the Sydney', the dockyard deteetfves are on guard aboard the ship. The Daily Herald says: The Admiralty has announced that a detailed examination of the ship’s engines and of her machinery is being made, but it is not considered that any interference will -be caused to the ship’s programme. Workmen, who came ashore, after the final engine check, said that seven steel bolts were found in the sump of the gearbox connecting the ship’s turbine to the starboard propeller, ymd these bolts had stripped cog wheels, and had damaged a pinion. One of the workers said: “When the engineers tried to start the main engine, they could move it only a part of the way. Divers then went down to see if the propellor had fouled some obstruction. They found nothing. The gearcase cover was then taken off, and seven bolts—one of them four and a.half inches long—were found. They could not possibly have got into the sump by accident”. A representative of the Parsons Marine 'Steam Turbine Company, Limited, of Wallsend-on-Tyne, which installed the engines of the Terrible, said that the damage would not. take long to repair, and that there would be no hold-up in the delivery of the ship. _____________