16 Men & A Burning Ship

Sixteen seamen stood before the Probate, Divorce & Admiralty Division of Britain's High Court one day last week. Fifteen of them were survivors of the British tanker San Demetrio, veterans of the Jervis Bay convoy (TIME, Nov. 25); the other, a representative of a dead comrade. What they had to add to the saga was as epic as the battle itself:

The 38-ship convoy was strung out in line that day in November, the San Demetrio in front, slicing through a calm sea. When the German raider opened up she was directly in line of fire, was struck at once, despite the gallant efforts of the Jervis Bay to take the full blow. His ship badly smashed, the skipper ordered his crew to the boats. As they dropped astern, the San Demetrio was struck again and began to blaze. The weather began to kick up. Two of the boats disappeared. All afternoon, through the night, and most of the next day the third lifeboat tossed on the Atlantic.

The second afternoon the lifeboat sighted the San Demetrio again in the distance, still afire, surrounded by floating oil. Easing alongside, they tried to clamber aboard. Flames shot house-high from the afterwell. Amidships she was glowing hot. But by noon next day they had managed to get aboard.

The bridge was ruined, the compasses, steering gear, charts and wireless gone. The only alternate steering gear aft was nearly wrecked. Only four spokes were left in the wheel. And the flames gained more headway every minute. Then the lifeboat broke away, left them stranded.

All night they battled the fire and by morning brought it under control. A jury steering gear was rigged and the main engines urged to nine-knot speed. For 700 miles 26-year-old Second Officer Arthur Hawkins guided her eastward, by the moon and stars and a page torn from an old school atlas. Greaser Joe Boyle, his ribs broken, was propped on a stool in the engine room to check the gauges. But after two days he collapsed, died overnight in his bunk.

The morning of the seventh day they finally sighted a British warship. With the help of fleet officers and ratings, the tired crew covered the last two-day leg into the Clyde. Still in the San Demetrio's tanks were 10,000 tons of oil, valued, with the freight cargo, at -L-60,000. The ship herself, almost new, was worth -L-250,000.

Last week the court awarded the claimants -L-14,700 salvage money: -L-2,000 of it to Skipper Hawkins; -L-1,000 to the estate of Joe Boyle. Another -L-1,000 went to 26-year-old Oswald Ross Preston, U. S. volunteer to the R. A. F., now on duty with the Eagle Squadron, because he played a "magnificent" part when the battle started. To his prize money the crew added the tattered red ensign of the San Demetrio, never hauled down till she reached the Clyde.

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