POIGNANT STORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23371, 13 June 1939, Page 9

POIGNANT STORY

LOSS OF SUBMARINE SURVIVOR'S NARRATIVE " KNEW IT WAS SERIOUS " EFFORTS TO ESCAPE LONDON, June 10 A dramatic and poignant story of the events which followed the dive of the new submarine Thetis, up to the time of his escape by means of the Davis apparatus', was told by Mr. Frank Shaw, an engineer fitter, omployed by Cammell Laird and Company, Limited, who was one of the four survivors of the disaster, in which 99 lives were lost. Mr. Shaw, who is still seriously ill, tolcl the managing-director of tlie company, Mr. R. S. Johnson, what happened. p an i c i n crisis

"I felt the submarine dipping, but there was no panic," he said. "Everyone obeyed orders to stand at stations and it did not seem long before the noso went into the mud. AVe all knew it was something serious, but we had not the slightest doubt that we would get out without much trouble. "We sat around and chatted, and eventually, after a conference, I gathered that it was decided that Captain Oram (Commander of the Fifth Submarine Flotilla) and Lieutenant Woods should go through the aft escape hatch with messages tied to them describing the position. "They were brave men. for up to that time we had heard no sounds indicating that rescuers had located us. " Failed to Make It " "After they had gone we stood around with our Davis equipment on. It was possible to talk, but most of us were saving our breath. It was getting pretty thick. "Two more men tried to get away through the hatch. We watched through the peepholes as they waited in the hatch for it to fill up. They failed to make it, and we brought them back into the submarine dead. "Then two more tried, and again we watched through the peepholes and again the same thing happened. "Later, Leading-Stoker Arnold and I volunteered to try. 1 reckoned that I could only last another half-hour in that atmosphere. We were both weak and had the greatest difficulty in scrambling up to the hatch because of the steep angle. Most of Drew ill Bad Way

"Lots of the others were sitting or lying around, mostly in a bad way. They could not say much by way of farewell. You had to talk more or less wiih your eyes.

"Arnold and I managed to get in the hatch, which seemed an awfully long time filling. I do not remember seeing anyone at the peepholes. "Eventually the hatch filled and we shot out. It could not have taken us more than 30 seconds to reach the surface, but it seemed like all day and night." Mr. Shaw was later reported to have disclosed that the men drowned in the escape hatch had forgotten to put on their nose clips. Stoker's Souvenir When Leading-Stoker Arnold reached home, one of his first acts was to place in safety a cherished souvenir of his mates. He dropped into a battered toffeetin a crumpled ball of silver paper and told his wife the story of a little jest with which he had tried to keep up the doomed men's courage. "The boys in the Thetis were getting downcast," he said. "The air was indescribable, and we were told we must not smoke. So I went round and collected tho silver-paper from the cigarette packets for the hospitals. It cheered them up a bit. "Some of them were trying to write a message to their folks at home, but 1 do not think many were able to finish." WILL NOT RESIGN FIRST LORD'S POSITION LONDON, June 11 "I am not resigning, not at the moment anyway, because I love my job," said Earl Stanhope, First Lord of tho Admiralty, in an interview with a representative of tho Sketch. "1 have done all I can," said Lord Stanhope. "There was nothing I could have done. I was in constant touch with Devon port. Carbon-monoxide gas, due to the fusing of a wire through tho inrush of water, caused the deaths of the occupants."