DRAMA OF THE SEA

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22052, 27 August 1941, Page 6

DRAMA OF THE SEA

“WE TOLD OUR LIFE STORIES” Mrs Annie Haldane, 30-year-old widow, who was in a torpedoed Atlantic cargo ship, sailed 600 miles in 14 days in a ship’s open lifeboat, with two other English- men and 14 of the crew, including seven Chinese. They lived on buttered ships’ biscuit, condensed milk and a mouthful of water daily. “It was the face cream that I missed most,’’ Mrs Haldane said, when she arrived at Gibraltar and told her story. The ship, homeward bound from Capetown, was sunk when six days from Sierra Leone. Mrs Haldane, whose home is at Markinch, Fife, got away in a lifeboat with Miss Kathleen Peto, of Ir'dand Vicarage, near Preston, Lancashire, and Miss Violet Camber, of Telescombe Cliffe, near Newhaven, Sussex. They saw the U-boat so closely that they could read the number. “Taffy Owen, a Welsh seaman, navigated with a pocket compass. Twice the lifeboat was nearly swamped, and we baled madly. Our faces were cracked and peeling, and we put ointment from the medicine chest on our lips. “We sang hymns, led by Taffy Owen, in the mornings, and told our life stories daily. Miss Peto had the only mirror and comb, and we passed them round.

“On the 14th day we sighted Cape Verde Islands, too exhausted to cheer. Portuguese nolice carried us ashore.”