Evening star., 1941-01-16
IIIustrious
Continued From First Page.)


Nazis pay. The final score in
German planes shot down was II.
(DNB, the German off,
cial news agency, said the IL
lustrious suffered extensive
damage to her port side and
claimed it would be long time
before she could be put into
service again.
(The British previously had
announced in London that the
Illustrious, the 9,100-ton
cruiser Southampton and the
1,335-ton destroyed Gallant
had been damaged)
The attack on the Illustrious
came after a British cruiser at
tached to the convoy sank one
of Italy's newest destroyers, the
642-ton Vega, and damaged an
other.
I had a ringside seat for this
engagement, during which the
British cruiser also engaged Ital-
ian shore batteries presumably
on the Sicilian COAST.
The cruiser opened the battle
when she sighted the two de-
stroyers dead ahead. A shell
from the British vessel set one of
the destroyers aflre and she
moved off at top speed. losing
herself in the mist along the coast
as the cruiser engaged her mate.
The latter. the Vega, ex-
changed shell for shell with the
cruiser until her magazine suf-
fered a direct hit. I saw a great
mass of flame shoot up from the
Vega and she slipped swiftly be-
meath the waves with her entire
crew of "a men.
British naval units continued
to fire at the Italian shore bat
teries, which fell silent after the
Vega sank. A British plane
dropped bombs on the other flee
ing destroyer and British ex-
pressed a belief possibly she sank
or was beached somewhere along
Pantelleria Island.
AS the convoy continued its
eastward journey after the naval
battle, I was in the wardroom of
the Illustrious, just sitting down
to lunch, when a marine bugler
sounded warning and the loud
speakers doomed:
"All hands to action stations"
I had barely reached the bridge
when big bomb struck the ship
with a shattering blast, and a
moment later another 1000
FOUNDER crashed alongside. A
binding flash seemed to envelop
the whole ship.
Another bomb tore holes in the
carriers sides. Still another burst
close alongside, the fragments
striking members of an anti-air-
craft gun crew.
The din was hellish as every
gun on the Illustrious roared at
the Germans, but they continued
to come. raking the decks with
machine-gun fire even as they
loosed their bombs.
Several torpedoes narrowly
missed the carrier.
Battleships, cruisers and de-
stroyers were being attacked 81
multaneously. Great spouts of
water sometimes hid the other
vessels from sight.
Both officers and men of the
Illustrious risked machine-gun
fire to cross the decks to rescue
wounded comrades and carry
them below to medical stations.
The few fighter planes which
the carrier was able to get into
action before the first bombs
struck drove the Germans off
temporarily and gave the only
respite until darkness fell. Less
than an hour after the first as
sault the Nazis returned, and
once more hell broke loose.
Bombs fell all about the ship,
rocking her so that at times it
appeared she was about to turn
over. Between 2 and 7::30 pm.
there never were more than a
few minutes at a time free of the
crash of bursting bombs and the
thunder of gunfire.
Throughout the afternoon Rear
Admiral A. L. st. George Lyster
stood on the bridge with bomb
splinterS and machine-gun bull
lets splattering around him, CIV
ing orders to his aides.
So low did some of the big Ger
man bombers come that every
detail of their markings was
clearly visible to those aboard
the Illustrious.
One officer said later:
1T was the most tremendous,
terrifying thing I have ever seen.
1t seemed like all the fires of He'll
had been kindled. The blast of
a 1,000-pound bomb is so crush
ing, so incredible, there are no
words to describe it,"
When the Illustrious finally
reached port IL hours after the
last German attack was over, fire
squads rushed aboard and
quickly extinguisheo a small fire
in her interior. Shipwrights set
to work at once plugging bomb
holes and getting her ready to
go to sea again.
The dead were taken out to sea
for burial in the waters on which
they had fought, and the wound