HOSPITAL SHIP ASTURIAS SUNK

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9621, 29 March 1917, Page 5

HOSPITAL SHIP ASTURIAS SUNK

VESSEL TORPEDOED WITHOUT WARNING THIRTY-ONE LIVES LOST, 12 MISSING, 3d INJURED. Bj Telegraph—Press Association —UepynKnr. Australian and New Zealand Cable Association and Router. (Received March 28, 11.20 p.m.) LONDON, March 28. The Admiralty reports that the British hospital ship Asturias, while steaming with all navigation lights, .and all distinguishing Rod Cross signs bnliiantly illuminated, was torpedoed without warning ou the night of iho doth. The military casualties arc; Eleven dead, three missing (including a female staff nurse), and seventeen injured. The crew casualties are: Twenty dead, nine missing (including a stewardess), and twenty-two injured. The torpedoing of this ship is one of the achievements claimed for the U-boats by a German wireless press message. On February Ist, 1915, the hospital ship Asturias, 12,000 tons, a vessel of tho Royal Mai! Steam Packet Company's fleet, was attacked by a submarine off Havre. The Germans fired a torpedo in board daylight, and only the prompt handling of the vessel saved her. There was no possibility of mistaking tho character of the Asturias.