WAR CRIME RECALLED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 12

WAR CRIME RECALLED

HOSPITAL SHIP ATROCITY. GERMAN U BOAT’S BARBARITY. One of the most callous episodes ot the German submarine campaign during the Great War is recalled by a report which recorded the suicide nt Cali, it: Colombia, South America, of Herr Jg. C Boldt, manager of tho German Colom bian. Construction Company. Herr Boldt was second-in-command of the U St when, in the last year of the war, she sank the hospital ship Llandovery Cas tie, 11,423 tons, in circumstances ol unparalleled atrocity. At. 9.30 p.m. on June 27, 191$, Captain Patzig, of U 86, sighted tlu Llandovery Castle about JOO miles west of the Fastnet homeward bound from Halifax. The liner carried a staff of SC officers and men of the R.A.M.C., .14 nurses, and a crew’ of 161, but had lie patients on board. She was fully light ed, and bore all the marks of a hospi tai ship. Patzig, however, torpedoed the vessel amidships, inflicting such damage that she sank in ten minutes. All on board had time to take to the boats, but Pat zig fired on them. Only the master’s boat escaped, to bo picked up with its 24 survivors by a British destroyer. Th< remaining 234 persons on board hac been, without a doubt, wantonly mur derod. Boldt, in 1921. was sentenced to font years’ imprisonment by the Leipzig Supreme Court, but was allowed tc escape soon after his conviction.