LINER ABLAZE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 57, 11 March 1946, Page 5

LINER ABLAZE

QUEEN ELIZABETH AT SOUTHAMPTON . SABOTAGE SUSPECTED Recd 6 p.m. London, March 9. Fire broke out in the liner Queen Elizabeth, largest in the world, at her berth in Southampton yesterday. The outbreak was discovered at about. 9 a.m., but. was extinguished a i hour and a-half later. The damage is extensive. Sabotage and a searching investigation is being made. In the meantime the li/er and nearby docks are be2 ig heavily guarded. The liner, which is moored in the new docks, thi; week completed her wartime trooping service and was laying up for refit before entry into the North Atlantic passenger service. The fire on the liner started in the ba-.broom and a lavatory attached to the hospital block. Bedding in the store ol the ’hospital was burnt out, said the general manager of the Cunard-Wnite Star.

The first alarm was given at 0.4 a.m. and the fire was mastered by 10.30 a.m. There was considerable damage to the hospital, steelwork being twisted into heaps. Plates on the promenade deck buckled, and flames at one stage burst through the boat deck.

After a preliminary inquiry, the Cunard-White Star manager said: T don’t think there is any reasonable explanation of the lire. I don’t want to say it was sabotage, but certlai*views have been expressed.” Home Office scientist experts have joined Scotland Yard in investigating the tire, and Dr. J. B. Firth, director of the Home Office forensic science laboratory at Preston, has been called in. Firemen, with spotlights attached to their chests, entered the block immediately after the fire was extinguished and searched for clues. Scotland Yard has established an office aboard the liner.

Two of the ship’s waiters discovered the fire and immediately gave the alarm. Emergency squads held the liie in check until brigades with full equipment arrived.

Members of the crew of the Queen Elizabeth said they would have had great difficulty in finding the seat of the fire if the two waiters had not discovered just where it was. Smoke filled four decks. A reporter who boarded the vessel said he found it impossible to get through the smokefilled corridors near the fire. Since the Queen Elizabeth arrived at Southampton the normal fire watch has been doubled, and 60 men had been on duty night and day. The fire-fighters were badly hampered bv dense smoke. The whole of Southampton’s fire-fighting force turned out, and fire floats and 100 ft. ladders were brought into use and poured water on to the promenade deck. Some brigades came from 30 miles away. In. case the fire spread, the lifeboats wore lowered to the level of the portholes to enable the firemen to fight the flames from them. Fire-fighting operations were directed from the ship’s loud-speaker sys.em. British troops may be sent to Southampton to guard the docks, where three of the world's biggest liners, the Queen Elizabeth (85,000 tons), the Queen Mary (81,000 tons), and the Aquitania (44,000 tons), will in the next tew days lie together, says the “Daily Mail.”

The Chief Constable said: “The fire may prove an accident, but in view of recent happenings in Liverpool we cannot preclude the possibility of sabotage.”