SEAMAN’S EXPERIENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24750, 29 October 1941, Page 6

SEAMAN’S EXPERIENCE

PRISONER ON NAZI WARSHIP JERVIS BAY SINKING RECALLED (Rec. 8 p.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 27. A 20-year-old British seaman, Gerard Riley, who was a prisoner.', on board the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer when she attacked and sank the arm£d merchant cruiser Jervis Bay' told of his experience in Liverpool to-day. ' ' ' His ship, carrying bananas to England, was shelled by the Admiral Scheer at a range of only half a, mile late last year. Fortunately all the grew, numbering 68, escaped injury and were taken on board the German battleship and confined in a space which normally housed 20 German sailors. . “ Later," said Riley, “we heard ‘Action Stations ’ rung and felt the crash of the Scheer’s 11-inch gups when she opened,up on the .Jervis Bay, which my ship had passed a few hours before she was.sunk. That battle went on for five and a-half hours, and the ‘Jerries’ thought, they were up against a battleship.” Riley then described how for 15 days‘the British seamen had to stand in their small prison. Then they were transferred to a sister ship of the Altmark and were confined to the hold in a shade temperature of ISOdeg. “It was just hell down there,” he said. “ I had one cup of water a day. I saw men go mad down there, and I shall never forget those horrible days. Later we were transferred to another prison ship and fed on black bread and black coffee. , After 120 days we were landed at Bordeaux and put in a prison camp.” Eventually Riley managed to escape and find his way to Paris. " The people of France are right behind you,” he said. “In Paris I walked down a street with an old French woman who knew she would be shot if my identity was discovered, That old woman pretended I was her,brother and it was arranged that I should be dumb if we were stopped.” At length Riley reached Gibraltar and then got to England.