LOST WITH ALL HANDS

Wairarapa Age, 14 March 1934, Page 5

LOST WITH ALL HANDS

JAPANESE TORPEDO BOAT CAPSIZES. DISASTER IN THICK FOG DURING MANOEUVRES. FORMER TRAGEDY RECALLED. TOKIO, March 12. Sasebo reports that the torpedoboat Tomozuru capsized in thick fog in manoeuvres near the Goto Islands, off Nagasaki. The destroyer Tatsuta was towing the Tomozuru to Sasebo when the vessel capsized owing to heavy seas. Aeroplanes searched for survivors in vain. The whole ship’s company of 106 is given up for lost. The Tomozuru was one of the newest torpedo-boats, a 527 tonner. It is recalled that a very similar tragedy occurred when the destroyer Sawarabi sank in Formosa Strait on December 5, 1932, when 104 were drowned. THREE SURVIVORS. A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE! (Received This Day, 1.7 a.m.) TOKIO, March 13. Three were miraculously saved from the Tomozuru after the arrival of the Sasebo, but poignantly, two others wore drowned in tho high waves in the act of being rescued from a hatch. The Tatsuta affixed a hawser to the propellers and towed the upturned Tomozuru to Sasebo, where midnight hammering of the hull elicted answers from within. A hole was made through which milk and restoratives were passed. Divers entered -below and rescued three, of whom two had broken arms, but walked half a mile to the hospital. The hull was subsequently righted and efforts made to find other survivors. Tho crew totalled 113, of whom a hundred almost certainly are dead. The Emperor has expressed his profound grief at the disaster.