ELEVEN YEARS AFTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 196, 8 November 1927, Page 13

ELEVEN YEARS AFTER

GERMAN SEAMEN REWARDED ' £3 BECOMES UD A pleasant example of - how the brotherhood of the sea bridged the Great War is told in "Tales of S.O.S. I and T.T.T.,” by Bennet Copplestone. 1 "T.T.T.” is a wireless warning signal. It is recorded that heroic German sailors who risked their lives to save j passengers and crew of a burning BriI tish liner in mid-Atlantic in 1913 were j presented with medals for bravery in I 1924 —eleven years after. ! The sailors were members of the i crew of the Xord Deutscher Lloyd ! Company’s ships Grosser Kurfurst and Seydlitz. They were two of the many vessels which went to the rescue of the Volturno when she was burning in a gale in the Atlantic in 1913. The German sailors, following the example of the British liner Carmania, persistently launched their boats in attempts to cross the raging sea, until they reached the first boat of survivors. After an official inquiry, awards r *f medals, plate and grants were made to 65 German officers and men. The medals and plate were sent to the British Embassy in Berlin in July, 1914. Then came the war, and it was not until 1923 that the Board of Trade found that the awards had not been made. Forty-six of the medals were discovered at the British Embassy. Nineteen had disappeared. The missing medals were replaced by duplicates from England and, in 1924, the awards were distributed. The distribution had a humorous side. In 1914, when the medals were sent to Germany, grants of £3 a head went sent to the Nord Deutsclier Lloyd at Bremen. The money wits paid over to the company in German marks — then worth Is each. In 1923 it was paid out to the men. The gifts, once worth three good English sovereigns, had shrunk to the ! value of three English half-pence. 1 The author refers to a “respectful I grouse” of one German sailor on this I score, and offers his deep sympathy.