Adventures On Prison Ship Outdo Fiction

Northern Advocate, 5 September 1941, Page 6

Adventures On Prison Ship Outdo Fiction

[Special to “Northern Advocate”] AUCKLAND. This Day. Adventures as exciting as any described in fiction were related by Mi - . Irving King, a young Australian, who has arrived in Auckland. Mr. King was aboard the 5618-ton motorship Rabaul \(?hen she was intercepted by a German raider in the South Atlantic on May 14. Mr. King says that after being taken aboard the raider, they were transferred about three weeks later oil the mouth of the Amazon to the German prison ship Alstertor. “She set off for France, and we gave up hope of being rescued,” he said yesterday. “We were told we were to be sent to a prison camp just out of Cologne. Cards were prepared to send to our relatives advising them that we were safe and giving details of what comforts we would like sent. Germans’ Mistake Off Cape Finisterre a Catalina flying boat sighted us. Mistaking her for a German machine, the crews took the canvas coverings off the hatch covers, revealing large painted swastikas. “The flying boat opened five with machine-guns and the ship replied with anti-aircraft guns. We were hustled below into one of the holds. “The hatch cover above us. with a large swastika over ft. made an excellent target, and I think all of us were scared stiff when the plane began dropping its bombs. It was a nasty feeling to be locked below at such a time. A Fearsome Moment “The plane dropped three 2501 b bombs 50 yards astern. The ship heeled over, and we thought she was going down. Doors were wrenched from their hinges, so that we could have escaped had she sank, but she remained afloat. “The pilot told us later at Gibraltar that a fourth bomb would almost certainly have hit the quarters in which we were confined, but it caught in the racks. At 8 p.m. the flying boat left, but the Germans gave up all hope of escaping. They knew the Navy would catch up with them, and they sent us beer and cigarettes. Destroyers Appear “Sure enough, next day. seven destroyers appeared. The Germans put the wounded off fn a boat with a Red Cross on it. but we were told to jump overboard and swim to rafts they had put down for us, as the ship was being scuttled. “Being locked below while the aeroplane was bombing us was the worst moment of the trip, but there was another unpleasant episode when we saw a school of sharks not far away. However, four time bombs exploding in the ship effectively frightened them away. We were taken aboard the destroyer Fearless, which was recently sunk in the Mediterranean, and landed at Gibraltar. We were sent back to England in a ship fn which were 3000 refugees who had escaped from the Nazis.”