ADRIFT FIVE WEEKS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 226, 25 September 1942, Page 5

ADRIFT FIVE WEEKS

FREIGHTER’S CREW RESCUED New York, Sept. 23. The Herald-Tribune’s correspondent at a West African port, Mr. John O'Reilly, described the rescue of 18, o£ the crew of a torpedoed American freighter who had been adrift in an open lifeboat for 32 days in the midAtlantic doldrums, subsisting on concentrated food. They were emaciated and sore from drenching rains and a scorching sun. A Norwegian freighter, on which the correspondent was a passenger encountered the boat. 425 miles from the point where she had been torpedoed. They had drifted in circles for days after trying to row and sail. A South American engineer died on the 23rd day. The U.S. Navy announced that an Italian submarine torpedoed and sank a medium-sized United States merchantman several hundred miles off the northern coasc of South America in the middle of August. The survivor were adrift for 23 days before they were picked up and landed at an east coast port. The submarine first shelled the ship, but its marksmanship was so poor that it was finally forced to fire a torpedo.