Personal information

Norton William Preece described the sinking of Fort Franklin in November 1998:
We left Port Said and sailed south heading for South Africa. We were supposed to sail between Madagascar and Africa but our wireless operator got a message there was a submarine in the channel. We changed direction and sailed outside Madagascar instead. The submarine must have got the same message because it was waiting for us! On the afternoon of July 15th two torpedoes hit our ship. I was sleeping but woke up quick enough! I grabbed my life-jacket and ran up on deck. There were four lifeboats and four rafts. Only one lifeboat was used as the others were smashed. It took 7 minutes for the boat to disappear. The lifeboat I got on was meant to hold 40 people but we had 50 on board - actually 51 but one man died. He was wrapped in a blanket and the Captain of the ship (who was with us) said a short service and then he was gently put overboard. There were four men went down with the ship. The submarine surfaced and the Germans took pictures of us then gave us first aid kits and cigarettes!
We spent four and a half days in the lifeboat. We had a sail and when we sighted land it was Madagascar. The surf was so high we spent hours trying to find a place to go ashore. Finally we saw natives coming out in boats and we didn’t know what we were in for but it turned out that they were all very good to us. We were billeted in homes. I was in an English home where they had a small boy. It is hard to believe he would be about 60 years old today!

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