FIRE ON RENOWN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 4 June 1927, Page 5

FIRE ON RENOWN

HEROIC PETTY OFFICER. DISASTER PREVENTED. POSITION SEEMED HOPELESS. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT LONDON, June 2. The Port Louis correspondent of the “Daily News” says that one of the few facts allowed to penetrate the veil of discretion thrown over the fire on H.M.S. Renown discloses that Petty Officer Jeffries was chiefly instrumental in preventing disaster, and suggests that the full story is worthy of publication. The fire started at lunch time, while the boilers were being replenished. The fuel overflowed and rose to a depth of nine feet in the boiler-room, after which it took fire. The heat and fumes speedily suffocated the stokers, who were bravely fighting to overcome the flames, but were forced to retreat. The position seemed almost hopeless, and the whole ship’s company were piped to the upper deck. - Jeffries, realising the danger, remained at his post and succeeded in turning off the cocks and closing the boiler-room door, with the result that the fire was isolated and, after a long fight, extinguished. Jeffries was badly binned, but is non- recovering.