YOUTHS’ ORDEAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 267, 13 October 1941, Page 4

YOUTHS’ ORDEAL

ESCAPE FROM ENEMY.

PRIVATIONS IN AFRICA. (United Press Association-Copyright.) (Dee. 8.5 a.m.) .LONDON, Oct. 12. Four English youths who were seamen on a ship torpedoed in the Atlantic have reached Scotland alter being four months in a A icliyite concentration camp. They are all under

20. One said: “We and seven others in a lifeboat were cast ashore in I'rcneh West Africa. Native police kept us in grass-sovered huts throughout the tropical rainy season. Life was absolute misery; our diet consisted of bread, rice and water, and occasionally goat’s meat. We bartered clothing tor scraps of food smuggled into tho camp. “Native troops kicked us and butted us with the ends of their rifles when we complained. Four of us escaped and followed a railway line for several miles to the coast. We found a canoe and waited for a more moderate seas. A French padre found and fed us', but native police arrived and inarched us back to camp. Our punishment was to carry water for four days without hate in the blazing sun. The strain was too much and we were sent to hospital We were finally taken to tho frontier in a lorry and dumped in British territory.” The youths added that conditions in West Africa generally were very bud. Food was scarce, bread being rationed and butter, c-beese and wine being unobtainable. The Germans had . worked the people up to expect a British invasion, and tbe police and military were anti-British. The total Britons imprisoned in French Guinea were 42 from two ships. The terrible ordeal of the survivors of a British ship torpedoed by a U-boat who spent 15 days on a raft without food before they were rescued was revealed by the First Lord of the Admiralty in a speech. Seven out of the 18 died before the survivors attracted a ship by flashing tin lids in the sunlight and the boatswain died after the rescue.

Recounting their experiences, an apprentice said: “We used to slide off the raft into the water to refresh ourselves and stretch our legs, but after uine days we were too weak to do this. We had only a gallon’tin of water and rationed ourselves with three teaspoonfuls daily.”