City of Rayville

Randleman, N. C. had the distinction last week of being the home town of the first (and only) U. S. seaman to drown in the sinking of the first U. S. vessel sunk by the Axis--the 5,883-ton freighter City of Rayville (Tampa, Fla.). The ship apparently hit a mine, presumably laid by the same raider that had previously mined antipodean waters (TIME, July 1) in Bass Strait, between Australia and Tasmania. (A few hours earlier an unidentified British freighter had met the same fate.) Third Engineer Mac B. Bryan of Randleman, N. C. leaped overboard from the City of Rayville without a life belt. Unable to swim, he yelled through the darkness to his mates but they could not find him. The mine blew the City of Rayville's nose off. Survivors kept bits of metal, which landed in the lifeboats, for examination to determine whether the mine was German or Italian.

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