MINED SHIP PANIC

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4430, 26 May 1941, Page 3

MINED SHIP PANIC

ITALIANS RUSH BOATS. HEROIC AUSTRALIAN GUARD. JOURNALIST’S EXPERIENCE. Gallantry and discipline of the highest order were displayed by Australian soldiers when a ship carrying Italian prisoners of war struck a mine in the Mediterranean and sank in eight minutes, says a war correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. The ship, was carrying 400 prisoners from Libya to internment camps in Egypt, and a small part of Australian infantrymen, under a lieutenant, were acting as escort. It was about mid-day of a typical Mediterranean day, warm and sunny, with a sparkling blue sea and no hint of danger anywhere. The prisoners were sitting about on the upper deck, laughing and talking and playing cards—youngsters in their drab green uniforms, happy in their captivity, as all Italians seem to be. The steelhelmeted guards leaned at ease on their rifles, watching them. THUNDEROUS EXPLOSION. Sudenly the ship’s whistle screamed an air-raid alarm, the correspondent adds. Steel helmets and lifebelts were hastily adjusted and guns manned. The prisoners were on their feet, shifting, muttering, looking up fearfully—the first signs of panic. Minutes passed, and far away we saw the faint black dots in the sky? We never knew, for they passed us by, flying high and fast, and soon after came the “all clear.” I went down to the wardroom with a group of ship’s officers, and we were standing there talking and smoking. And then it happened. There was a tremendous explosion, and the whole ship rocked and shuddered and stopped. The wardroom buckled up under our feet, and we were thrown in all directions. Some did not get up again. There was a moment’s deathly silence, and then pandemonium. Up from the shattered engine room staggered an engineer, his right arm hanging limp by his side. “A mine,” he said. “Caught us fair and square. She won’t last 10 minutes.” MAGAZINE PLOWS UP. A second explosion occurred almost immediately. It was the magazine going up. On the port side a lifeboat swung from one davit, half of it splintered to matchwood. The stern of the ship was already under water, and there was a rush and gurgle under our feet. The bow lifted sharply, and a number of men, thinking she was going, clawed their way across the sloping deck and flung themselves over the side. On the prisoners’ deck hell had broken loose. They were screaming in wild mob panic. I heard shouted orders, and then the rattle of shots. I fought my way to the upper deck, and saw part of the Australian guard under their officer striving desper-

ately to defend one of the lifeboats against a mob of shrieking men. The guards were ringed in, backed against the rail, using their butts with vigour, but they were cool and quite unshaken. It was a scene to be remembered—the screaming, panic-stricken crowd, trampling on one another, flailing their arms and shrieking senseless curses, and the little steady group of khaki figures, disciplined and brave, and thinking* in the midst of that hell, only of their duty. The ship gave a convulsive lurch and settled lower. Water began to flood in over the lower deck. She was clearly going down. I jumped overboard. The water was full of prisoners, completely crazed with fear. They were clutching at one another and screaming. They drowned one another, and they drowned themselves, and but for the desperate use of fists and boots they would have drowned me. I fought my way clear and looked back toward the ship. Her bow was canted high in the air, and Italians, too frightened to jump, were clinging to the rails and rigging. “STICKING IT OUT.” And then I saw something which I shall never forget two Australian soldiers, evidently previously posted as sentries, standing on that reeling deck, still and erect, their helmets on their heads, their bayoneted rifles in their hands, “sticking it out” to the bitter end. And then suddenly the end came. The bow jerked higher, then slipped under the waves, and there was nothing there but a few struggling figures in the water. It was all over eight minutes after the first explosion. No boats were launched. For what semed an eternity those of us who were left trod water or swam round, the Australian soldiers and the English sailors trying to find one another and stick together. Finally, a trawler, acting as a minesweeper, picked us up, and some were, later transferred to an Australian destroyer. The casualties among the prisoners had been heavy, and a number of the crew and the Australian guard were never seen again.