Only One Of 8 On Light-Ship Survives

Northern Advocate, 31 January 1940, Page 5

Only One Of 8 On LightShip Survives

(Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, January 30. THE LIGHT-SHIP REPORTED YESTERDAY TO HAVE BEEN ABANDONED AFTER BEING ATTACKED BY ENEMY PLANES WAS' THE EAST DUDGEON. The eight men who comprised the crew endeavoured to reach the shore in a boat, but capsized in the surf. Seven, were drowned. The sole survivor. John Saunders, said that huge Heinkel bombers had machine-gunned the deck and dropped nine bombs, the last of which hit the light-ship. The crew rowed for 17 hours, after which only two men were? able to hold on to the oars.

Took Skipper on His Back. < Saunders took the'skipper op his back when the boat capsized and tried to reach the shore, but a wave swept the skipper off. Saunders struggled up the beach and entered a house without waking the occupants. He wrapped himself in blankets and slept until the morning. When he was found he was still numbed with the cold.

When the Latvian ship Tautmila, gutted by fire after being bombed yesterday, drifted ashore on the East Coast, local inhabitants were astounded to see a young seaman leap into the shallows and wade ashore clad in pyjamas with his head wrapped in towels. ,

Knocked Unconscious. “The explosion knocked me unconscious,” he said. “I found myself alone in a drifting inferno when I opened my eyes. I could only wait until the boat drifted ashore or sank.”

A programme of music on the Berlin radio last night was interrupted to announce that German

aircraft destroyed seven armed merchantmen and two patrol boats in the North Sea and that one enemy fighter aeroplane was shot down near . Hartlepool, says a

British Official Wireless message. The Air Ministry authorises the statement that the German claim to have brought down a British fighter aircraft is untrue.