An item dated Berlin, Germany 4th reported that the British steamship Turakina (1) refused to stop when this was ordered by a German auxiliary cruiser. The result was that just 23 crewmembers were saved.(2)
Notes
1. Call sign GJVD. Built with yard number 322 by William Hamilton&Co., Glasgow, Scotland for account of the New Zealand Shipping Company, Plymouth, England in 1923. Underway towards Sydney, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand tried she to escape from the German Orion (the HSK-1 or Schiff 36) but was sunk after a flight of 2,5 hours on 20 August 1940.
2. The Orion was laid down at the yard of Blohm&Voss at Hamburg, Germany 1930 as the freighter Kurmark for account of the HAPAG-line. She became possession of the German navy in 1939 and was rebuilt as the auxiliary cruiser Orion and commissioned 9 December 1939. In the German administration she was known as the Schiff 36 or HSK-1 while the British Royal Navy called her Raider A. In 1944 she was as an artillery training ship renamed Hektor but again named Orion in January 1945 serving as a refugee transport in the Baltic. Steaming back towards Copenhagen she was sunk by an aircraft attack off Swinemunde 4 May 1945 with just 150 survivors of the more as 4,000 men, woman and children on board. Her hulk was broken up in 1952.
