Conisboro´ Man in “Accra” – Rescued From Torpedoed Ship

August 1940

Mexborough & Swinton Times August 10,1940

Conisboro´ Man in “Accra”

Rescued From Torpedoed Ship

Holiday Extended

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Returning to his work on the Gold Coast as an official for gold Coast Banket Areas, Ltd., after a holiday at his home in Conisborough, Mr. Tom Jones, of The Rockies, Doncaster Road, is back home again for an extended holiday – the boat in which he was travelling, the “Accra”, one of a convoy was torpedoed when it was about 250 miles west of Ireland. In less than an hour and a half the ship had sunk.

All the saved passengers have been landed in England (the accident happened on July 26 th ), and Mr. Jones returned to Conisborough with the clothes he was wearing – and nothing else, all his possessions having gone down with the ship.

Undaunted, he is renewing his passport and his kit, and is sailing for the Gold Coast in the next available ship. He has had an adventurous career. As a boy he ran away from home at Conisborough and went to sea. He served with the Navy through the China War of 1900. and in the Great War with the Royal Engineers in France, was wounded, and later reached commissioned rank in the royal Field Artillery. Since then he has worked in American mines in Canada, and in the tin mines of Nigeria before taking up his present post.

Before he went to Africa he was an official at Brodsworth and Askern Collieries and under-manager at Rossington Main.

“My chief regret”, Mr. Jones told the “Times” this week, “is that an old friend with whom I had made several trips to Africa is missing. Whether he went down with the ship or jumped overboard and was lost I do not know”.

Mr. Jones added that the attack occurred in the afternoon, but it is believed that the submarine was sunk, for a destroyer telegraphed that it had located the attacker as it was following the rescue vessels, and had dropped depth charges. Bubbles and patches of oil came to the surface.

Mr. Jones who has three month´s holiday a year, undertakes a 4,000 miles journey to see his wife and grown-up family of two sons and a daughter. Mrs. Jones and the daughter, the latter being engaged in the offices of a Doncaster firm, resided at Conisborough, one of the sons is licensee of the Coach and Horses Hotel, Barnburgh and the other son works in the south.

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