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THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 3, 1940.
Soldiers Sang As Bombed Troopship Went Down
BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT STRUGGLING FOR FOOTHOLD ON THE SIDE OF A 16,000-TON BRITISH TROOPSHIP AS SHE LAY HALI CAPSIZED AFTER A BOMB ATTACK, SCORES OF VETERANS OF THE AUXILIARY MILITARY PIONEER CORPS - THE "THIN RED
·LINE" LAUGHED IN THE FACE OF DEATH AND WENT DOWN WITH THE SHIP, A SONG ON THEIR LIPS.
Smiling as he watched them stood an immacu late British officer, coolly smoking a cigarette. He could not swim. He went down with them.
As chemy 'planes circled over the sinking vessel, a soldier with a Brea gun blazed away at them from the lilting deck until he was waist deep in water. He was swept away by the sea.
This valour was shown in the loss of the Lancastria, famous old
Cunarder, sunk at ancher off St.
Nazaire, in the Bay of Biscay, after taking aboard B.E.F. men, and wemen and child refugees from France
Crammed in the liner were 5,000 troops and refugees, plus a crow of 800, Thère ·áre: 2;823- people missing It was stated, the first time the full story was revealed...
Some of those missing may have been able to reach the' shore.
Eight enemy bombers attack" the liner, and some Bur vivors believe the planes were Italian.
At first they 'missed.
The soldiers were so tightly packed that they could not move, But they jeered at the chémy" dirmën,
++
But the machines came back and a salvo hit the Lancastria
She listed heavily, making it a difficult to get the boats launched. Then she capsized, and sunk hälf an hour after being hit.
The discipline aboard the ship during that half-hour was per-
•fect.
Machine-Gunned Them
The coldiers pressed back to form an alleyway for the wo men and, children to reach the boats.
The came the order: "Every man for himself."
on: Many of us were covered: In filthy oil. The sailors clothed us."
Threw Her Baby
As two of the boats were drop- ping down the towering side of the
Lancastria, they capsized. One had
about 120 people on board, in- cluding two Frenchwomen and two children, aged about five. They were flung into the water.
One woman flung her baby Into the water and dived in after it. She was a strong swim- mer, and after picking up the child che, made off to one of the lifeboats.
In the stokehold had been a Pioneer Corps. C.Q.M.S.. whò dashed to the side of a French woman and her eight-year-old child.
Kay Francis, appearing as Deanna Durbin's mother in' Univertal's "It's a Date," "com. Ing to-morrow to the King's Theatre.
AIRMAN
BURIED AS
SON BORN
"I helped thêm up the stairs," A flight sergeant in the he said, "but it was a terrible RAF and his wife were- Job. Steam was pouring down
on, us and we had to hold Hand-looking forward to the kerchiefs to our faces to save that their baby, due to them from being burned.
arrive on the first anniver. sary of their wedding.
"I got the mother and child into lifeboat and then was forced in myself."
He added:
But by was late. He was born on the day of his father's funeral
"The heroism of two officers-is. One something I shan't forget.
The parents of the baby were was the sixty-nine-year-old Town Major of Dieppe, Colonel Trom-light-Sergeant Instructor Roy Nelson and Mrs. Leta Nelson, aged twenty-two, of Trafalgar Terrace, Darlington
lin.
:-་་
Calmly Waited
By a coincidence, Mrs. Nels
He stood apart from the menton's father died the same day,
Mrs. Nelson told a reporter:- hurrying to leave the ship. He "Could not swim and so he lit a "My husband was looking for- cigarette and calmly awaited ward so much to having a son: In his last letter he sent a kiss from death..
Daddy to baby.'
Signalman J. McMylor, of the One of the crew said: "The sea was almost a solid mass of Royal Corps of Signals, said: "As men clinging together like flies, were clinging to the
the ship sank by the bows, men propeller, covered with thick oll. "There were women and chil-boat I was in tried to get to them, singing Roll Out the Barrel.' The dren struggling for their lives, too. but it could not get there before.
"Yet those aeroplanes roared the propeller disappeared." down and 'machine-gunned the
"I was two yards from the hutch. people in the water.
when the explosion occurred, and "Some of the airmen seemed to was knocked to the deck," said be taking photographs of the ter-Lleutchant R. Haynes, of the rible scene.
"Badly wounded 'men were
floating in their life-jackets. Many of those life-Jackets be- came empty."
“A Grand Lad”
A company sergeant-major of the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps said:
"I gave the order to man the hosepipes, for smoke was com ing up the hatch, it was impós-
sible to obey, because the troops were jammed so tight In the alloyways.
"Just then the ship gave a sud- den lurch to port till she was list- ing at an angle of 45 degrees. We were thrown off our feet.
"From the bridge came the or der: 'Every man for himself,' and I chucked hatchboards over the side to act as inlfs when we got Into the water. By this time the ship was 'beginning to sink and her propellers were high out of the
sea.
A.M.P.C. "As I lay there waiting for the debris to fall I Began to pray.
"It must have been only sec- Monds, but it seemed like ages,.
and I prayed. lika:ĥell. .*Then I felt a blow on the back. A rifle had hit me. I was glad it was not a Bren gun."
Two Church Army sisters, who were but aboard the Lancastria after being bombed in a lorry dash to the coast, said:
"He always seemed to be sure. we would have a boy. He even chose the name for him. Brian Lewis. Now I am going to add my husband's name, so baby will be christened Brian Roy Lawls, **
FUR'S BOMBER FUND
MORE GIFTS CONTINUE TO REACH ENGLAND FROM ALL PARTS OF THE EMPIRE, AND SOME OF THE LATEST COME FROM FIJI.
"We got into a lifeboat, and as At Suva, the capital, Europeans, we moved away from the ship's Indians, Chinese and other na- side soldiers looking through ationals joined with the Fijians in a carnival, as a result of which the Governor has sent £5,000~ part of the proceeds-to the Red Cross and St. John's Ambulance Fund.
porthole saw we were lifebelts.
weuring
a
Pilot Captured
"They shouted 'Give us 'Chalice, and we took off the belts and flung them into the sen: The soldiers jumpba In after them.
"RAF. planes which sped to the sèche dropped lifebelts among the struggling soldiers."
"Forward was a soldier with a Bren gün, rattling away with will One soldier who had been blind- he'd got. He stuck it even when cd by the force of the first ex- the water was up to his waldt. plosion was led along to the ship's; His gun was silenced only when hospital. Just as the doctor wüsi he was wached away from It. A attending to him a second bömb grand, lad. I hope lie was saved, exploded, killing all those in the "Just before, the ship capsized | hospital;" "Including the ductür. and went down, some of our men A soldier swani to a boat with we call ourselves The Thin Red | a Võiling girl whose logs had Ucen | Line-scrambled on to her upper- | broken, She died on 'n rescue ship,i
Host side.
"There they stood, knowing
that
they had no chance. They want down like bravo meni Binging 'Roll Out the 'Barrd),! "After three-quarters of hour, I was picked up by one of the Lancheiria's Ureboats, crowd
Gifts for this fund so far re- ceived from Fiji total £11,500.
The Fij Bomber fund now stands at £57,600,
The Fill Tund for London air- ruid relief now stands at £1,300.
All in all, an imposiiig array of gifts from this small possession in the Pacific-Reuter.
WOMAN DEAD, MAN STARVING
A min was thken to hospital in Orse Belgian mother, who nad, n. weak 'condition, believed to be walked half derone France, was due to lack of food after h's sister -rounited with hor three children has Buch found dead in bed..
In a rescue boat after being The woman was Dorothy, May | Keene, b. spinster, aged forty- and hours in the water,"
The captain, Commander; even, of Lumtion Avenue, Shir- Sharpe, of Wallasey, Cheshire, ley Southampton. was saved, ed down to the Waterline with It is believed that a plane hot survivors. Then a warship took us down later by a British vessel aboard.
was one of those which bombed "Bohle of us had lot a allton | the liner. The pilot won captured.
܂
When a frictid called, the bro- her. Ealle Owen Keene, nged: "hirty-eight, asked him to see if he could wake up" his sister. The visitor found Miss Keene dend.