FIGHT FOR LIFE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3192, 19 August 1930, Page 3

FIGHT FOR LIFE

MISSIONARY’S ESCAPE. FURTHER DETAILS OF DISASTER. Sydney, August. A report from Samarai gives further graphic details of the disaster which overtook the Methodist mission launch. Bromilow, with the Rev. G. P. Lassam and 10 natives aboard between Woodlark Island and Salamo, the mission headquarters.

When the launch was wrecked on a reef east of Amphlet Islands on the night of July 10, Mr. Lassam sent two natives in the dinghy to Salamo, which they reached on July 15. Boats were then despatched and the searchers found the wreck, but no one was there. Mr. Lassam and one native were subsequently found on a small bank many miles away. Mr. Lassam says that he and eight natives left the wreck on a raft made of masts and spars, in an endeavour to reach the islands. While they were drifting three natives went mad and jumped overboard, and two other natives left the raft, each on a plank, and endeavoured to swim' to the Amphlets. Mr. Lassam and three natives finally reached the sandbank, where they had remained for five days. The rain they caught and small shellfish were their only sustenance Two natives died on the sandbank, and only Mr. Lassam and one native were alive when found. There is no trace of the two natives who attempted to swim to the islands, and it is feared that they were lost, seven lives being thus lost altogether. The survivors are recovering.