TORPEDOES THAT STOPPED
A GAME OF CHESS
OFFICER TELLS HOW TROOP LINER SANK
London, Jan. 31.
HERE, IN SIMPLE, dramatic detail is the story of how a U-boat 200 miles out in the Atlantic in October torpedoed and sank the Bibby liner Yorkshire with invalids of the R.A.M.C. aboard.
dark, but was always frothy. Hard things swept by me. I groped up- words with my hands and kicked with my feet..............
CONVOY HAD TO GO
The first thing that struck me was that the sun was shining, and that the great ship had completely disappeared.
I came up within a foot of a life-raft and caught hold of it.
There were two other rafts, cach with two men on them, quite close, otherwise we could see nothing except the other ships of the convoy making
The story is told by a young officer in the British Army, off as hard as they could. a nephew of Lady Diana Cooper, in a letter to a friend which the United States magazine "Time" publishes:
Most of us on board were invalids or personnel of the R.A.M.C., returning home from the East. We had on board a magnificent variety of interesting diseases. I was "The Rheumatism.”
a
At lunch I played a game of chess together and come aboard us in with the ship's doctor, an old Scots-rush; a great, green smooth-backed man of about 70. I leant forward to wave surged over the side. lake a piece, but my hand never reached it, for there was a sudden crash and the chessmen went flying across the deck.
TRAPPED BETWEEN DECKS Those standing around the boats were either swept overboard or trap- ped between the two decks. Those
It was only then that I remembered they were forbidden to pick us up.
We
Then a lifeboat appeared were towed about for two hours. At
length we were joined by four other lifeboats. We were taken aboard a comparatively empty boat.
THEN A LIGHT
It soon got dark, and our optimism waned with the light. The sea looked as cruel as death.
And then we saw a light only a
We lit some flares.. pinpoint,
And then I saw that there were two
towards us.
We had been torpedoed. The im-of us who were still on our feet strug-lights.... It was a ship, and coming possible had happened.
I found myself on my feet for the first time in eight weeks, and they I felt flat on gave way beneath me. my face.
gled up the companionway and down on to the port deck.
I staggered to the side on watery legs, straddled the taffrail and looked
down. There was a boat in the water My lifebelt was under my chair, and several ropes leading down into and I put it on from ground level. | it.
As I did so I looked back over my These were the life-liners and were shoulder and saw a great red sheet of } fastened above to the boat deck. Half- flame with smoky edges hanging in the way down one of these ropes was a sky above our stern.
woman clinging to it like a monkey to a stick.
I once more struggled to my feet, just in time to be thrown over by the second torpedo, which hit us amidships.
The boards covering No. 3 hatch❘ had been blown off by the force of the explosion and there was a deep yawning hole. Hanging by one hand to the corner of tarpaulin and swinging over this abyss, with kicking legs, was a little girl.
She and two others had been play- ing on top of the hatch. The other two had been killed. I saw a soldier pull her to safely.
At last our boat came down. Sud- denly the sea seemed to gather itself
The woman got off the rope, and I slid down it. It must have been a 12ft, drop, and the lifeboat was jump- ing to the swell. And then, in a des- perate voice, somebody shouted, "Cast off, for God's suke, she's going."
Before the stern falls could be cut or cast off the Yorkshire reared her bows into the air and slid, backwards And we were still tied to the bottom. to her.
was #
There I remember being pinned
roar of rushing water which almost obliterated the screaming.
I did not go deep; It never became
B. E. F. RAID ON GERMAMS
Land, beyond the Maginot Line,
British troops have ralded German trenches. A British patrol, out in No Man's entered enemy outpost trenches.
They found that some of the Gunfire was spasmodic during jury suffered by the British patrol member of the patrol stumbled
*
trenches were deserted.
the British rald, but the only in- was a sprained ankle caused when Into an anti-tank trap.
DISGUISED GERMAN SHIPS SPY ON R.A.F. PATROLS
German naval vessels, some of them disguised, are lurking off the Heligo- land Bight watching for the bomber- fighters of the R.A.F. whose mission it is to harry the German nests of mine- laying seaplanes.
This is Germany's answer to the only one of R.A.F. security patrols.
The vessels are signal-stations, to flash to the coast instant warning of an R.A.F. approach.
Because of the disguises they are a problem to the R.A.F.; who must take on risk of mistaking a neutral fishing boat for one of them.
Bomber-fighters have attacked some of these craft, but never without the certainty that they were naval vessels, acting as watchers for the German coastal command.
When in doubt, pilots have always spared them.
Though the problem remains, it is The R.A.F. will not an insoluble one. find the answer before long. "KIPPER KITES" The Air Ministry does not regard the security patrol as in itself a cure for mine-laying from the air, but as a number of possible measures for curing it.
Nevertheless, a very marked reduc- tion in the intensity of the Germans' use of this weapon has coincided with the use of the patrols.
They have been carried out with- out loss.
The RAF. is now watching with increased vigilance over the herring fleets, following repeated German at- tacks upon them.
Planos given this duty-the Navy rudely calls them "Kipper: Kites"— have not lately encountered single German plane.
During three days 260, aircraft were out on patrol.
She was an American freighter, the Independence Hall, and I have never heard anything so sweet as the sound
of those American voices as the crew leant over the sido and hailed us.
She had 80 beds in the hold. There were over 300 of us in that hold, for the crew of another torpedoed ship, the City of Mandalay had already been picked up.
GERMANY HAS
SPECIAL RADIO
JAMMING STATION
Germany has a special radio station for jamming foreign broadcasts.
The announcer from Deutsch- landsender made the admission when he read from a list of gifts to the troops:
"Two hundred marks from the jamming station at Stralsund.”
This is the first time that any country has admitted that it keeps a station specially for jam- ming.
GERMANS TELL OF
ENGLISH 'RAIL CRASH'
The Germans, who have had nine smashes on their railways with the loss of 400 lives since the war be- gan, organised a fictitious smash in England.
B.B.C. linguists listening-in to the German news broadcasts in Hun- garian and Rumaninn heard the Ger- man announcer give details of an
English rail disaster.
The German announcer saying it had shocked England, quoted ex- tracts from an imaginary B.B.C. bul- letin to prove it.
The B.B.C. denied that they had broadcast such a bulletin.
TO-NIGHT
SATURDAY, 24th FEBRUARY, 1940 -
D
"GRIPPS" DINNER DANCE
PRESENTING
MIMI & JOSE
In an entire change of programme
WITH
NICK KORIN & HIS SWING BAND
Dinner $5
EXTENSION 2 A.M.
No extra cover charge
Reservations 'Phone 30281
HONGKONG HOTEL
The Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels, Ltd. ́
e9
e9
Pa
Pa