TWO SUNK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23482, 20 October 1939, Page 9

TWO SUNK

BRITISH STEAMERS PASSENGER LINER 233 PERSONS RESCUED SIXTY STILL MISSING (Received October 20, 12.50 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 10 An American steamer is now on her way to port with survivors of two British ships which have been torpedoed in mid-Atlantic. The American ship has 300 survivors on board. 223 of whom are from the Bibhv liner Yorkshire, a twin-screw turbine passenger steamer of 10.183 tons. The other torpedoed vessel was the City of Mandalav, a 7028-ton freighter owned by the El lor man Lines. The American vessel is the Independence Hall, bound from New York to France. The news was sent by wireless by the Independence Hall to her owners, the United States Maritime Commission. The Independence Hall advised by radio that she will arrive at Bordeaux to-day. Sixty of the passengers and crew of the Yorkshire are still not Accounted for. An author, Jose Germain, a survivor of the French passenger liner Bretagne (10,108 tons), which was sunk on Saturday, gavo the first eye-witness account of the sinking of that ship when lie was taken aboard a destroyer after five hours in a boat, says tho Paris correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. "The Bretagne's sirens gavo the alarm,'' said M. Germain, "whereupon the captain ordered full steam ahead. He followed a zig-zag course, trying to escape, but the submarine followed like a shark, and finally got ahead and barred the way. It attacked without warning, whereupon the passengers and crew took to tho boats."