BRITISH MINE-LAYER DESTROYED

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 64

BRITISH MINE-LAYER DESTROYED

OVER TWO-HUNDRED UVE3

LOST.

LONDON, May 27. The auxiliary vessel Princess Irene was accidentally blown up in Sheerness Harbour, and 77 dockers perished. It is believed that over 200 lives were lost. The Princess Irene was a mine-layer, and belonged to the Canadian-Pacific Line. An internal explosion occurred at 11 o’clock this morning, and the vessel totally disappeared. Stoker David Wills was picked np; he sustained burns. Several men in vessels .near by were wounded by falling splinters. There were pathetic scenes outside the dock gates, where a notice was posted that 77 workers had lost their lives in the execution of their duty at Sheerness shipyard. May 28. Besides the crew of 250 on the Princess Irene, it is unofficially stated that a large party of rentiers and dockers were aboard. Some estimates give the lost as 400. Two pillars of flame at intervals cf a few seconds rose to a height of 300 ft. There was a deafening roar, and when the smoke had cleared only fragments of wreckage and the crew’s corpses remained. The explosion was felt at Maidstone, 22 miles away.

An officer aboard a vessel near by says that the Princess Irene was hurled into the air a mile high in 10,000 fragments. He could distinctly make out the forms of men amidst the flying wreckage. The Princess Irene was largely manned at Chatham. She had left the dockyards only 24 hours previously, and was moored to a buoy 350 yards from the snore. A man named Wills, picked up in the water, was unable to give an account of the accident. He was understood to say he was in the middle of the ship vdien the explosion took place. He thinks ho must have been blown into the water with part of the ship on which he was wcrking. Three other men belonging to the Princess Irene had just gone ashore, otherwise the whole crew would have been blown to pieces. Nothing except a portion of the mast marks the place where the Princess licne was berthed. The Medway was spotted with pieces of wreckage and litt'e bits cf human bodies. The explosion was more severe than that of the Bulwark. Houses near the quay seemed to rock under the shock.

A little girl playing on a verandah atPort Victoria was struck by falling wreckage and killed. Places 10 miles south-west of Sheerness were covered with falling fragments. Houses at Sittingbourne were shaken, windows broken, and the ground trembled like an earthquake. Women rushed into the street with children, fearing a Zeppelin raid. Several were injured at Sittingbourna. * A boot, a collar, a tie, and a pound of butter fell in a garden at Eainham, four miles distant. Two dockers who were returned to the Princess Irene in a Government pinnace state that they were obliged to take'refuge in the cabin from the rain of burning debris. When they were able to emerge there was no sign of the vessel on which they were working an hour earlier. It had been blown into the minutest fragments. There was little disturbance in the water, which was black as ink. ■ The wreckage resembled matchwood. The spectators saw one of the men swimming with a lifebelt, and they believed he -was a survivor, but they found that he belonged to another ship. -He jumped overboard, believing that his own ship was doomed.

A seaman who was on the deck of a neighbouring ship narrates that he saw a huge flame springing from the deck of the Princess Irene, followed by smoke. Then there was a series of crackling explosions, followed by an explosion of great volume. Smoke and coal dust rose in the air, and the Princess Irene simply melted away. The explosion seemed to stun everyone for a few moments. Then boats’ crews were ordered to pick up the survivors. Two men who were working on neighbouring barges were saved, but several others were killed, including a crew of five belonging to a harbour launch alongside the Princess Irene.