LOSS OF THE MAJESTIC.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13837, 4 August 1915, Page 2

LOSS OF THE MAJESTIC.

HEROISM OF CREW

A letter written by a French soldier to his daughter giving a description of the sinking of the battleship Majestic off Gallipoli Peninsula on May 27, says: —

"At 6.35 in the morning I saw tho periscope of the German submarino to port. I immediately gave the alarm.

The sighting of the periscope was immediately followed by an explosion on board the Majestic, which was also on the lookout, and had fired a gun. The eruisor at onco began to list dangerously, going over to an angle of 4/sdo^. Everything on the deck was falling and •sliding down into the sea with a frightful din. There was, however, no panic,

and tho sailors, who had stripped ir readiness for tho final plunge-, waited for the fatal moment with perfeel calm.

"Four minutes after tlie explosion the Majestic turned completely over and disappeared under the waves, only tho fore pan: .of the keel romainin?. above the water. It was a heartrending and terrible but sublime fight to see 600 strong men facing doath in

silence

"They wei-o thrown into tliie sea whore they were smothered by the retting which should have protected them from torpedoes, and which now enmeshed them like a huge drtvg—amu! the huge- whirlpool, in which their beloved battleship sank to the bottom."

A newspaper correspondent who visited Cape tfelles on July 4 says he noticed among tho transports and other craft at a-nchod a small green object, looking like the top of a whale's body. This was all that was loft of the Majestic, which Avas gradually sinking into the sand.