TRANSPORT ATTACKED

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16992, 20 October 1915, Page 6

TRANSPORT ATTACKED

TORPEDOED IN MEDITER*

RANEAN,

THREE NEW ZEALANDERS LOST.

LETTERS FROM SOLDIERS

[Per Press Association.]

WELLINGTON, October 19.

A member of the howitzer battery with tho oth Reinforcements states in a letter that he, with forty-three other New Zealanders, are on an Australian transport which wa6 torpedoed by a German submarine. Three of his party lost their lives. Boats and' warships did great rescue work..

Mr Massey states that the Government has had no advice of the torpedoing, of any transport containing New Zealanders.

DUNEDIN MAN'S STORY. [Per Press Association.] DUNEDIN, October 19. Mr Lcwin, town clerk, has received a letter from his son, a member of the Fifth Reinforcements, which states that a transport containing Australian and New Zealand'troops was torpedoed. The writer states that the total casualties were fifty-one Australians and three New Zealanders, including a Dunedin boy. The troopship was attacked on the way from Alexandria to Anzac, and the' torpedoing took place at 10 a.m.

Mr Lewin's son was rescued by a French destroyer. The troopship was not actually sunk, but was able to proceed to port under her own steam. In the course of his letter, Mr Lewin's son says that the torpedo blew out the middle of the apartment where bunks had been fitted all round the hold. The explosion blew the hatctes and the steps-leading from the hold clean off and a number of men were caught down below. A chain happened to be hanging down from the deck above and the men climbed up somehow or other. , Everything was orderly on deck, so far as the soldiers were concerned. Most of the men in Mr Lewin's boat were thrown into the sea, as one of the crew lowered the boat with a rush while the other held. on. Mr Lewin swam away and got into another boat. Alter picking up five or six men they made for an island, which appeared about ten miles off. Boats, cruisers and destroyers commenced to arrive about an hour and a half after the transport was torpedoed. . , , , Mr Lewin's boat was picked up by a French destroyer about 3.30 p.m. Three New Zealanders belonging to the New Zealand Headquarters staff, and about fifty-one Australians weie lost. , ~ The first torpedo missed the engmoroom and a second' missed the vessel altogether. The torpedoing is supposed to have happened about September