LOSS OF THETIS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 194, 18 July 1939, Page 7

LOSS OF THETIS

RACE AGAINST TIME.

FIRST SALVAGE EFFORTS

100 TO 1 AGAINST RESCUE

(United Press Association—By Electric

Telegraph—Copyright.) Received July 18, 10.10 a.m LONDON, July 17

At tie Thetis inquiry, to-day, Captain Hart, a marine surveyor who was aboard the salvage tug, described the dramatic race against time to gain entry to the submarine when its stern was about 15ft out of the water shortly before the Thetis plunged for the last time.

Tlie wreckmaster clambered on the Thetis to remove the outer cover and began to loosen the holts of the inner cover. He reported that there was a •considerable air pressure, whereupon Captain Hart ordered him to screw them up. The wreckmaster jumped oil' as the submarine swung dangerously. The chances were then 100 to 1 against a rescue.

The weight of the vessel and the strain during the unsuccessful lifting operations a week later indicated that the submarine had taken in 450 tons of water since the stern rose the first time. Ail inrush probably caused the final submergence. Captain Hart agreed that when the destroyer flotilla arrived with a drilling plant it would have been possible to bore a hole in the stern and attach an air-pipe, but when the Thetis submerged it was certain that no diver in the United Kingdom could have descended at that state of the tide and drilled a hole or anything else.

THETIS FUND.

TOTAL NOW £121,657,

LONDON, July 16. The fund for the relief of the dependants of those killed in the submarine Thetis now totals £121,657.