GRAF SPEE POST-SCRIPT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 130, 1 March 1940, Page 4

GRAF SPEE POST-SCRIPT

MUSTARD GAS ALLEGATIONS There have been several footnotes to the River Plate Battle published at different times, but the affair goes on and on. The latest development is interesting. It will be remembered that after the pocketbattleship ducked into the shelter of a neutral port the Germans said that the British guns had fired mustard gas shells and that some of them had ruined the food supply. The suggestion was denied in Britain, but the Nazis persisted. They even produced an Uruguayan doctor to say that he had seen photographs of the injuries of 14 seamen from the Admiral Graf Spee and that their wounds were consistent with the story that mustard gas had been used. This doctor was Dr. Walter Mcerhoff. He is an eye specialist and he published articles in the Uruguayan Press insisting that the injuries to the sailors were due to mustard gas. An Uruguayan medical commission, appointed at the request of the British Legation, ridiculed his claim. Now comes the news that Dr Meer hoff has been dismissed from his post at the Government-operated Pasteur Hospital. The dismissal was ordered by the President of Uruguay and was officially declared to be due to the fact that Dr Meerhoif had "cast aspersions on the State of Uruguay, compromising the good faith of the Government, and cast doubt on Uruguayan neutrality."" But we will not hear this from Nazi radio stations.