Barcelona, Feb. 4.
Spanish Nationalist war planes which to-day bombed and sank the British steamer Alcira twenty miles south-east of here, machine-gunned the ship before dropping their bombs, surviving members of the British old the United Press here The attacking planes flew British ship so low that th skimmed the masts, making impossible any case of mistaken identity, the members of the crew said.
"We were warned that planes were overhead," one member of the crew said, "but disregarded them, thinking that it was a joke. Then we heard machine-gun fire and knew something serious was happening. The planes first machine-gunned us and then turned slowly and very los touching the masts as they flew over us from the stern. They dropped three bombs and made three hits.
"The first bomb struck the hold and started a fire, The second hit the Non-Intervention Committee observer's cabin, The third was a dud which hit the funnel
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.