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Show CANADIAN STEAMER SUNK BY TORPEDO STRICKEN VESSEL SINKS ON HER WAY TO QU Z EN STOW N AFTER PASSENGERS WERE REMOVED. Twelve Passengers and Thirteen Members of Crew Missing, While About Twenty of Those Taken From Vessel Were Injured. London. The Allan line steamer Hesperian, with 350 passengers and a crew of 300 aboard, bound from Liverpool Liver-pool for Montreal, was attacked without with-out warning by a German submarine off the Irish coast Just as darkness was falling Saturday evening. Although Al-though the torpedo found its mark, the vessel remained afloat until 6:25 Sunday morning, when it sank. Six second cabin passengers, six third cabin passengers and thirteen of the crew of the steamer are unaccounted unac-counted for. The captain of the stricken liner remained by his ship until it sank. He declined to comment on the disaster disas-ter for publication, hence the official statement as to whether be believes his ship was the victim of a torpedo i or a mine must come from the admiralty, admir-alty, although the captain is quoted as having told an Allan Line official that the Hesperian was torpedoed. The force of the explosion was tremendous tre-mendous and of the passengers landed land-ed at Queenstown, many of them scantily scan-tily clad, about twenty were injured. There were no American passengers aboard, but two members of the crew 1 were American citizens and they were both saved. About thirty Canadian soldiers, who were wounded in battle in Flanders, were going home to recuperate. Most of the other passengers wrere Canadians Cana-dians returning from a visit to England, Eng-land, or English people on their way to Canada to settle. The torpedo struck the Hesperian in the forward engine room and the ship immediately began to settle by the head. Captain Main ordered the passengers and crew into the boats, but his officers remained on the bridge, although at that time he must have felt sure that his ship would go down. The discipline was perfect, but one of the boats which became jammed, capsized and those in her were thrown into the water. In the darkness confusion con-fusion naturally prevailed, but all were picked up and with other passengers passen-gers and the crew were transferred to rescue steamers, which arrived in answer an-swer to wireless calls for assistance. The Hesperian was about 150 miles to the westward when struck. The Hesperian was a vessel of 10,-920 10,-920 tons gross. The Allan line, owners own-ers of the Hesperian, has been operated oper-ated for about three years by the Canadian Ca-nadian Pacific railroad, ships of the line running between Great Britain and Canadian ports. The Hesperian, a twin screw steamer, was built at Glawgow in 190S. She was 485 feet long, with a beam of 60 feel snd a depth of 30 feet. |
