STORY OF

SS CERAMIC

SINKING

Told by Sole Survivor

From Our Own Correspondent in

London

The first story of a three-year-old

mystery-the sinking of the Ceramic

in the Atlantic-has been told by

the sole survivor. He is Sapper Eric

Alfred Munday, 24, who was aboard

the famous liner (which was on the

Australian run before the war) when

she left Britain for Cape Town on

November 26, 1942, with 656 men,

women, and children aboard.

Ceramic went down off the Azores.

For 10 months relatives of passen-

gers and crew heard nothing.

Sapper Munday now says that Cap-

tain H. C. Elford, who had taken

Ceramic through the Atlantic before

without an escort, protested to the

authorities against taking women

and children aboard in that winter

of 1942, when U-boats were massed

in the Atlantic following the North

African landing. Nevertheless, 155

women and children, including 50

nurses, were in the ship when she

sailed.

On the night of December 6

Ceramic was hit by three torpedoes.

She remained afloat for three hours,

when everyone aboard was got into

boats and on to rafts.

At dawn a storm broke. The boats

were scattered, many sinking almost

at once. Munday's boat with 40 in

it capsized, but he and six other

soldiers managed to cling on. The

others were swept away.

After four hours a U-boat surfaced

near them. A rope was thrown to

them, but waves were lashing over

the upturned boat, and only Munday

was able to grab it. He was hauled

aboard. He pleaded with Captain

Henke, the U-boat commander, to

save the other six men who were still

clinging to the lifeboat, but Henke

refused and the U-boat submerged.

Munday was sent to a prison camp

in Silesia.