SINKING OF EAGLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24370, 4 September 1942, Page 3

SINKING OF EAGLE

EPSOM PILOT RESCUED EXPLOITS IN THE AIR (Special Correspondent) (Reed. 11.25 p.m.) . . LONDON, Sept. 3 The only New Zealander on the aircraft-carrier Eagle, which was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, was Sub-Lieutenant H. E. Duthie, of Epsom, who is in the Fleet Air Ann. He was in the water 20 yards from the ship when she went down. He was wearing a "Mae West" lifejacket and swam for half an hour before being picked up by a destroyer. .Relating his experience, Sub-Lieuten-ant Duthie said: "I had just gone down to my cabin to pick up my gear, bccause v I was about to begin a flight, when four torpedoes bit the ship almost simultaneously with a terrific explosion. I remember my mirror breaking. Then I dashed up to the flight deck, because the ship hud listed lieavily almost immediately.

"I waited for a while, hoping the ship was not going to sink, but the list continued, so I began to slide down a rope on the ship's high side into a liteboat. .Hut the Kaglo was swinging over so rapidly that the lifeboat was lilted up from the water. I jumped into the sea, which was oily and warm, and began swimming as quickly as possible, remembering stories of suction. But there was no suction, and 1 saw two men step oil the rudder as the Kaglo sank and swim away." Sub-Lieutenant Duthie was with the Eagle during a previous Malta-bound convoy, when lie was credited with shooting down one and a-half threeengined Savoia-Machetti bombers and probably destroying another. "One morning two of us were patrolling when we saw two of these bombers. We got both, one going down in flames. I was with the same pilot that evening when we saw 17 Savoia-Matchettis flying in tight formation. We both attacked the rear aircraft and it went down in flames. The other pilot's oil tank was hit, so he left. I used up the rest of the ammunition firing at another bomber and saw its starboard engine burst into flames. Enemy fighters arrived, so I left quickly."