Eyewitness Describes Eagle Sinking
(Rec. 2.15 p.m.) LONDON, August 13, Telling of the end of the aircraftcarrier “Eagle,” the “Daily Telegraph’s” war correspondent, Arthur Thorpe, says: “About 1 a.m. there were two tremendous crashes, and two more after a few minutes. The ship heeled crazily as 6-inch shells weighing lOOlbs. tore from their brackets and bumped across the deck.
“Sailors flung themselves overboard to escape the shells. I also went over and clung to a cork floatnet on which were six sailors, one of whom had a broken leg.
“While the “Eagle” was lying on her side, men swarmed like ants over her great underside. “Then _ she sank with a thunderous rumble in the thrashing foam. “A destroyer soon picked us up. Captain Macintosh was also picked up from the float-net.”
Thorpe also survived the Ark Royal sinking. The normal complement of the air-craft-carrier Eagle was 748, so, even allowing for wartime expansion of the crew, the figure of 930 survivors must represent a very high proportion of the crew.
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Northern Advocate, 14 August 1942, Page 3
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170Eyewitness Describes Eagle Sinking Northern Advocate, 14 August 1942, Page 3
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