OCEAN TRAGEDY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 March 1934, Page 7

OCEAN TRAGEDY

THE JAPANESE DISASTER. THREE MEN RESCUED. FROM UPTURNED HULL. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received March 14, 8.5 a.m. TOKIO, March 13. Three, were miraculously saved from the torpedo boat Tomozuru after its arrival at Sasebo, but two others were drowned in the high waves in the act of being rescued via a hatch. The destroyer Tatsuta affixed a hawser to the propellers and towed the upturned Tomozuru to Sasebo, where at midnight hammering of the hull elicited answers within. A hole was made through which milk and restoratives were passed and divers entered below and rescued three men, two of whom had broken arms, but walked half a mile to the hospital. The hull was subsequently righted and efforts were made to find other survivors, who are believed to be about eight. The crew totalled 113, wherof 100 are almost certainly dead. The Emperor has expressed profound grief at the disaster.

It was reported yesterday that the torpedo boat Tomozuru capsized in thick fog in manoeuvres near the Goto Islands, off Nagasaki. The destroyer Tatsuta was towing the Tomozuru to Sasebo. Aeroplanes vainly searched for the survivors, but all the 106 were given up as lost. The Tomozuru was one of the newest torpedo boats and was a 527 ton vessel. The Tomozuru has been docked at Sasebo and pumping is proceeding in the hope of rescuing more besides the three already rescued, who were en-gine-room hands and had taken refuge in a watertight compartment. A survivor said that waves rushed in when the ship capsized in the pitch dark. He thought he was lost, but hours later hunger and foul air made him desperate in his desire to escape. Suddenly he was marvellously rescued after what now seems a nightmare.