Escaping Sailors Drifted Back

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 278, 24 November 1939, Page 9

Escaping Sailors Drifted Back

TRIED TO CROSS NORTH SEA LONDON, Nov. 3. A lifeboat in which three German sailors attempted to escape from a Scottish port drifted into the Firth of Forth, its occupants helpless from cold and hunger. After six days at sea they had given up the fight, and currents and tide had carried them back to our shores. The men were members of a crew detained at an island port in the North of Scotland. .They have now been handed over to the military authorities and will be sent to an internment camp. Under cover of darkness the men escaped in the lifeboat. They had with them only the stores normally kept in the boat. For several days they managed to make some progress on their adventurous journey, but the battle with heavy

seas sapped their strength and endurance. Exhausted, and nearing collapse through lack of food, they finally gave up the hopeless task of trying to cross the North Sea and allowed the boat to drift. And the currents and the tide brought them back to Britain. Astonished officials in a Firth of Forth port found the boat drifting near tho harbour. The men, ill from exposure, id only half a tin of condensed milk left from their stores. The naval authorities took care of them and fed them, and later they were handed over to a military escort.