“LUCKY” PETTY OFFICER

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22474, 8 January 1943, Page 4

“LUCKY” PETTY OFFICER

Chicken Broth On Nazi Submarine Torpedoed Twice And Mined Once N.Z.P.A.—Special Correspondent LONDON, Jan. 6. When Petty-Officer B. D. Mackay, of Ashburton, left New Zealand nearly three years ago he never imagined he would one day board a German submarine in the South Atlantic and be given a large bowl of chicken broth by the Germans, but that is a fact and not fiction. Petty-Officer Mackay, who declares that his second name should be “lucky,” has been torpedoed twice, and mined once, but he came up smiling each time. His third escape included horror and amazement. He was returning to England from South Africa in a merchantman which was torpedoed at dusk when eight days outward bound. “Of 4000 persons aboard, it is estimated that only 3000 were saved,” he said. “The torpedo hit the mess deck and killed some 600 Italian prisoners outright. I was playing cards below. I fetched an overcoat, then helped to fling rafts overboard and get the women and children into lifeboats. Only one woman and one child were lost out of 140. “That scene in pitch dark, with the cries of the wounded had to be seen to be believed. Many lost their lives when oil flooded the stairs, so they were unable to get up on deck, but went down with the ship. I slid down a rope into a lifeboat which had great difficulty in getting away from the ship because the waves kept washing us against it, but Anally, after what seemed to be years, we got away. The ship sank about 10 minutes later. "We kept hauling men into the lifeboat until it held 96, which was nearly double its capacity. We could see lights of the rafts round us like great glow worms. The submarine surfaced and a searchlight revealed struggling men amidst the wreckage. It turned out that there was a pack of six submarines, including Italians. They surfaced and took the women and children aboard. For four days they prevented us making for Nigeria, stating that they had radioed for a French cruiser. Barbed-wire Prison On the fourth day they returned the women and children to the lifeboats and gave us a feed of chicken broth, also rum and water. We stood on the deck of the submarines drinking the broth which was excellent. Then all the submarines disappeared, and just at dusk on the fifth day, a French cruiser appeared and took nearly 900 of us aboard. We were battened down and only allowed on deck for an hour each day. We were taken to Dakar, then to Casablanca. We were put in a barbed-wire prison camp and were not allowed out. We were torpedoed on September 12, and remained in the camp until the Americans landed at Casablanca. We were certainly pleased to see them. They sent us to Virginia, then to New York, where we stayed for a fortnight, having a grand time. We then went to England with a convoy arriving there last week.”

Petty-Officer Mackay was in a destroyer which was sunk in the English Channel in the summer of 1941, after which he swam for an hour. He was in H.M.S. Neptune, but left her to take a diver’s course the week before she sank. He was also in a destroyer which was torpedoed during a Mediterranean convoy, and swam for half an hour to reach another destroyer,” he concluded. "I guess ‘lucky’ is my second name, all right.” Engine-room Artificer T. C. Farquhar, of Rahotu, who was reported missing last October, was in the same ship as Petty-Officer Mackay. "I heard he was last seen clinging to a raft,” said Petty-Officer Mackay.