Liner Lady Hawkins Torpedoed

   Wrecked by two torpedoes , the Canadian National Steamship's West InDies
liner Lady Hawkins sank so swiftly that not even an SOS was sounded and this
morning, eleven days after the tragedy, the fate of at least 250 persons,
including many Nova Scotians still is unknown.
   Seventy-one are safe, brought to San Juan, Puerto Rico, by the steamship
Coama. Skilled seamanship and high courage of Chief Officer P.A. Kelly, 27
Bridges St., Halifax, is responsible for that. He commanded the sole
lifeboat so far reported, a lifeboat built for 63 but crowded with 75
persons, including a two year old child.
   Their spirits had been raised as they sang hymns and prayed during the
five days between the sinking and the time they were picked up by the
passing Coama commanded by Captain Helgesen.

     Cables News Of Safety
                

   Kelly himself is safe, he cabled to his wife last night, telling also
that Murray MacNeil of MacLennan's Mountain, Pictou County, his next door
neighbour in Halifax, also escaped with his life. It was the latter's second
voyage and he had planned that it should be his last.
   What happened to the others aboard the ship is not known,--- the
survivors reported at San Juan that soon after the Lady Hawkins went down
they had drifted away from the other lifeboats which the crew had managed to
launch.

    Unable To Flash an SOS
                

   Without warning, survivors reported, the submarine struck. The first
torpedo smashed its way into Number 2 hold on the portside side forward of
the bridge, the second wrecked the engine room and doused all the lights.
   So quickly did the Lady Hawkins sink that irt was impossible to get an
SOS away, but more than one lifeboat was freed with an unknown proportion of
those aboard-321 in all, 109 in the crew and 212 passengers.
   In Kelly's lifeboat were 75 persons, instead of the 63 it was built to
accomadate. That overcrowding meant short rations and kelly took charge of
distributing the the food. Each person was fed daily one biscuit, a
tablespoonful of canned milk and two ounces of water- and the ordeal lasted
five days.

    Five Fail To Survive
                

      Five did not survive the hardship and the shock, but two year old
Janet Johnson reached port unharmed. She had passed through war's horrors
before, when her father , Albert Johnson, a member of the British Foreign
Service, and her mother were forced to flee from Rumania before the
advancing German armies. They escaped then, as they did this time, but again
they lost all their belongings.
    During the long hours of sailing on the course selected by Chief officer
Kelly, Mrs. Marion Parkinson, a missionary whose husband apparently went
down with the ship or who may be aboard another lifeboat, led the singing-
mostly hymns and when death visited the little craft, she conducted the
funeral service as the bodies were commited to the sea.
   Until all vessels in the neighbourhood of the sinking have reached port,
it will not be known what happened to those aboard. Radios are sealed aboard
all ocean-going craft and they cannot send word. It is therefore possible
that many more have been saved than those who have been reported so far from
San Juan.