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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14635, 19 June 1918, Page 6

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■* ■ — THRILLING ESCAPE PROM DROWNING. LONDON, May 18. After dinging to the undersidia of a seaplane pontoon for over eighty hours without food or drink, Sub-Lieut. Eric Moore, of the Royal Naval Air Service, and Ensign Stone, of the U.S. Naval Reserve, have arrived m London. Ensign Stone tells a thrilling story of bow he and Lieut. Moore drifted on the sea from a Saturday mcviiing until a Tuesday nieht before reaching safety. His account follow*: — "I left, our station m a British seaplane as pilot with Sub-Lieut. Moore, of the Royal Naval Air Service, as observer. Our duty was to convoy | patrols. When. tw ; o hours but, having met . our ships coming from the , westward, we thought we sighted, a periscope ahead, and. turned off m pursuit. We lost our course. Our engine stopped dead, and forced us to land on the surface m a rough sea. We had no kite nor radio to «all for assistance so we i released our two carrier pigeons. We tied a message with our. position and the word 'sinking' on each.. The first flew straight off 'and reached home. But the other wouldi not budge until Moore threw our navigation clock at him, which 'probably upset him so that he failed! us. Heavy seas smashed our tail planes, which kept settling. I saw they were pulling the machine down by the rear, turning her over. We tore the tail fabric to lessen the impact of the waves. The tail was smashed and its box filled with water. This increased the downward leverage and raised her perpendicularly m the air. At 2.30 p.m. we capsized, climbing up the nose and over the top, to the- underside of the pontoons. Our emergency rations had been m the observer* seat at the back, but we had been so busy trying to repair the motor and save ourselves from turning over that we did not remember this until too late. When I crawled aft for i food, Moore saw that I was only helping tho machine to capsize. He yelled to me to come back, and I did, only just m time to save myself from being carried doAvn with the tail. From* then on tor nearly four days, until picked up by the trawl&r, we were continually soaked and Inshpd by seas*, with nothing to eat or drink. To kepp from being washed overboard, we got on th esame pontoon and hugged our arms about one another's bodies for tho whole time. We suffered much from thirst. Twice a- drizale came on, wetting the pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the paint came off and nauseated us. Our, limbs grew numb. From time to time the wreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Once two fuH biscuit tins camp close enough to swim for, but by then 1 , m pur yrpnfcened state, we knew ihn|> we would drown if #c tried to get them. Wo » did haul m a third tin. and broke it open. It was filled with tobacco,"