SUNK BY A SUBMARINE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12063, 19 July 1917, Page 6

SUNK BY A SUBMARINE.

AN AUCKLAXDF/R'S EXPERIENCE. CARGO OF STGAR DESTROYED. A graphic account of the sinking by a German submarine of the steamer Rio Sorocaba while on the voyage from San Miguel, Azores, to Kngland last March, is given, says the ''.New Zealand Herald." in a letter received in Auckland irom Mr Ramsay Hutchison, who is well known to many people in Auckland, and who was second officer on the steamer, lie writes:

" I rushed on the bridge when I heard tho first shot, saw the .submarine, and rang the engines ' stop.' The third officer had turned her round. We first saw the. I'D on the pert, beam, and brought her on our starboard quarter. Captain Jones came up. I went up on the !x>at deck, and cut the prev,enter lashings we had to steady the boats, got in my boat, and ordered them to lower away. The Germans were popping away merrily meanwhile. My boat, was the starboard boat, and they wore on tho .starboard quarter. One shell landed about ten yards off us. However, the ship was doomed, and Captain .(ones, after seeing the port lifeboat safely away, came sliding down the. tackle into my boat,, oven with his two canaries in their cage no «-o rowed away from the old ship, and the submarine went after the mate's boat, which had rowed a good way off.

* * Til o lieutenant in charue of the To aske-d 11 if ni i! the, captain was in their boat, fiiul tlio mate said ' No,' so round thoy came towards us. Tliov asked lor Captain Jones. then tho name of two ship, where from, where hound, ana what, cargo. When wo said 'sugar,' what, a fiendish grin I hoy gave. Then thrv took us in tow hark towards the ship, which Jay rolling heavily to the son. waiting for tlio next, act. Tlio tcnv-lino broke, and tlio submarine jveiil alongside the ship, leaving us to follow, pull i mlt . Hy (lie way, though thoy shelled'us tliov did not strike the ship, but as Ave rowed under the counter and looked up atone poor old quarter boat which still .hung in the davits we could set 4 daylight through it, whero the llymg shrapnel had struck it. "So we went, alongside the I'-boal. It was then we made out I'.') riveted to J)or conning towo;- and painted over grey. The submarine was about a hundred feet long. The liiMlona.nl in command had gone aboard the ship with two of the men, and they were having <piit.e ;i .search. The .second in command hailed lis for our ship's papers, ■which the captain had in a canvas bag. AVe delivered them up. We then saw their, lower the, chronometer over the. side, the captain's sextant, my one, and the third mate's, on to the submarine, and stores in the, shape of lmx"s ol" biscuits, and they oven opened a Hatch and took a bag of .sugar out. Then tiioy proceeded to pull bombs up, and placed them seemingly down the lorepoak and ii: the engine-room, No. and No. 1 hatches, just about the water-line. Time, bombs, of course. " C/ur boat, which was strained badly in the storm and had got a I ouch of shrapnel, was leaking badly, so much so that Captain Jones asked the Gormons if they would hand us down a couple of buckets, which thoy did. Without them we, should never have reached the fishing smack which was to pick us up and take us to safety. The mate's boat had cleared out; we could just see him away on the horizon to the northward when wo pulled awav from the ship. The .submarine came, round after us, but. stopped about twothirds of the way between the old ship and our boat. Suddenly thorn was an oxplosion amidships, then a blo.v-up forward, and the Rio Soroeaba settled down by the head gradually; her stern rose out of the wafer until w> had a. clear view of the propeller and sternpost. Several explosions occurred in rapid .succession, and finally she was almost vertically in the water ore slio took the last dive. Our last view was her stem gradually disappearing in a thin cloud of smoke, and so we stood, in the lifeboat with heads bared in a last farewell. "We were then left on a, bare expanse of water, nothing in sight, a, fresh head wind and a rough head sea. The last we saw of the submarine he was steering away east, on th f . surface. T shall miss out what followed; but you can imagine our mast and sail going over the side in a heavy snow squall, then the rudder carrying away we steered then with an oar; men conlinu, ally haling out. water-a stoppage, meant t.wo inches more, in the. boat - our compass useless, and so pn. We bad fourteen hours of it, and were not at. all sorry when wo were, safely aboard the sni'K'k. We. arrived in Plymouth next morning."