The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-01-21
MACDONALD May HEAD
DEBT FARLEY MISSION
% Men Are SdUed Just
Before Freighter Sinks in
Thrilling Md-Sea Drama
Battered Hulk Slips Under
Gale Tossed Waves as
Men Leave Vessel.
BIZ United Press

By United Press
NEW YORK, Jan. 21.-
Twenty-Five men, hauled from
the shattered decks of the
sinking British freighter, Ex-
eter City, were safe today
aboard the S. S. American
Merchant, after one of the
most thrilling mid-Atlantic
rescues of recent years.
Battered by a gale and torn by
waves that washed away her bridge
and drowned her captain, another
officer and two men, the little Brit
ish ship rapidly was sinking.
The rescue was effected in dra-
matte battle against storm and time.
Hardly had the rescued crew been
brought, exhausted, to the decks of
the rescue ship, than the hulk they
had abandoned began slipping be-
meath the pounding waves.
Rescue in Mid Atlantic
The scene of the grim fight was
$50 miles off Newfoundland. It's
progress was announced in terse
messages from the master of the
American Merchant, Captain Gyles
c. Stedman, hero of a sea rescue
eight years ago, to his company
ashore.
Captain E. D. Legge, in command
of the freighter, which was bound
for Portland, Me-, from England,
was one OF the storms victims, pre-
sumably washed away together with
his third officer, an apprentice, and
a seaman, when the waves tore his
bridge from beneath him.
At $50 a. m. Friday, Legge had
signed an SOS signal, sweeping
the seas for some nearby, friendly
ship. The American Merchant re-
sponded.
Bound for New York, Captain
Stedman-who was once first Off
GER of the northumberland his
course and proceeded into the furi-
GUS storm to the side of the stricken
vessel.
Lifeboats Are Smashed
Over mountainous waves, line
was shot to the Exeter City. Her
decks were awash, and she was wal
lowing helplesSly, every lifeboat
smashed.
BY means of the line, the Amer
lean Merchant succeeded in send
ing over her No. 3 lifeboat to the
side of the sinking ship, and after
prodigious labor, the twenty-five
remaining members of the crew were
brought to safety.
Captain Stedman's laconic mes
sage to his owners read:
American Merchant. 9:43 Oct.
CAB E. S. I'd Lat. 4648 north;
Long. ALL west. Twenty-Five men
composing crew Exeter City aboard.
Rescue made in heavy sea. Ex-
pended our No. 3 lifeboat. Vessel
abandoned in sinking condition. Set
ting rapidly. Advise Bristol lines,
Bristol. Eng"
Pounded for "a Hours
The Exeter City had been pound
ed for nearly twenty-four hours
while her crew attempted to keep
her af1oat. Not until he saw she
was doomed did Captain Legge send
cut his appeal, and then only be-
cause his last lifeboat had been
crushed, and the matches stove in
under the thunderous hammering
of the water
The American Merchant picked
up his message, fifteen miles away
from the Exeter City. Those fiji
teen miles, however, we're through
mountainous seas, directly into the
teeth of the bowling gale.
BY the time Captain Stedman
reached the scene, Captain Legge
and his three men had fallen prey
to the storm, and a bowling gale,
in which the American Merchant
itself reared and plunged, prevent
ed an immediate rescue.