ILL-FATED VOYAGE OF MOTOR CRUISER PUZZLING THE POLICE

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 October 1946, Page 5

ILL-FATED VOYAGE OF MOTOR CRUISER PUZZLING THE POLICE

Reed. 11.45 p.m. Sydney, Oct. 29. The Criminal Investigation Branch has appointed two detectives to make a thorough investigation into the disappearance and destruction of the mo(or cruiser Nova, on which three men are reported to have perished, says the “Daily Mirror.” Several aspects of the sea tragedy have puzzled the police, and the appointment of two experienced investigators was decided on following a conference at police headquarters. There is no suggestion at this stage that the detectives will fly to Noumea to interview Mr. Jim Cush, who is to be the sole survivor of the voyage. Points which will engage the detectives’ attention are:

Precisely where the bodies of the three victims were buried. The detailed circumstances associated with the actual loss of the Nova. How, if the vessel was headed tor Sydney with a large stock of petrol aboard, it was so far off course that it could be swept 1000 miles from Jerseyville, in the Macleay River, to the Isle of Pines, in New Caledonia group. . The exact circumstances in which Messrs. Grant West, Frank Fulling and Frank Anderson met their deaths. Mr. Cush, who is still a patient in an American army hospital in Noumea, said all four wrote their wills when last hope of rescue and survival seemed gone. “After they had been witnessed we put them along with war bonds in a bottle, then put the I bottle inside the ship’s fire extinguisher,” he said. “We sealed thiz with red lead and cast it overboard. : I believe it may turn up on th a coast ' of New Zealand, or Lord How Island, or may even be carried across to the American coast. It may take six months to drift ashore there, or three years?’