VESSEL SHELLED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 206, 31 July 1937, Page 9

VESSEL SHELLED

ATTACKED BY SUBMARINES. VESSEL SET ON FIRE. SEVERAL OF CREW LOST. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received July 31, 10.55 a.m. LONDON, July 30. An unknown submarine attacked two Spanish tankers and a cargo boat, the Andutzmendi, within French waters. The Andutzmendi was sot on fire and 20 of the crew are missing. The remaining eleven managed to reach the shore, taking refuge at Nimes.

The Daily Telegraph’s Paris correspondent says that Captain Abdulio Castcl, of the Andutzmendi, stated that lie was proceeding in ballast with a crew of 31 from Barcelona to Marseilles, when two submarines of updistinguishablo nationality closed in to 30 yards from the ship and shot down several of the crew with a machine-gun volley before the captain could even signal. Panic broke out and a number of the survivors jumped overboard, while others took refuge in the holds. The captain stood helpless on the poop of the unarmed vessel while the submarines fired on her with machine-guns and incendiary shells for 45 minutes, inflicting heavy damage and setting fire to the ship. The captain launched a lifeboat, in which he, five officers and two seamen reached Saintes Maries de la Mer. All were hurt. The wreck burned all night, and now is sinking off the Espiguette lighthouse. Three bodies have been washed ashore. FLAMES PUT OUT. SHIP MAY KEEP AFLOAT. Received July 31, 11.25 a.m. LONDON, July 30. Two more bodies have been recovered, one that of the first officer and the other that of a seaman, who had been decapitated by a shelf while hoisting his shirt as a white flag. A second lifeboat has landed three additional survivors. Fishermen quenched the flames on the Andutzmendi and it may be possible to keep her afloat.

Nimes, where the seamen are taking refuge, is in. the south of France inland from the Gulf of Lyon and north-west of Marseilles.