THE NEW DEUTSCHLAND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 134, 11 March 1940, Page 6

THE NEW DEUTSCHLAND

SHUFFLING OF NAMES

Suspicions were" aroused when the Germain Admiralty announced the renaming of the "pocket battleship" Deutschland as the Lutzow, and while it may not be wise to draw too definite a conclusion from this fact, it is believed in London that the Deutsohland has possibly been sunk. What the British Admiralty suspects is that the pocket battleship was the "heavy cruiser" which the submarine Salmon attacked and torpedoed. When the Salmon crash dived to avoid the attentions of the German fleet after loosing a lot of torpedoes, she heard heavy explosions and when she returned to the locality she reported that a vast expanse of the sea was found covered with oil. This indicated that the ship might have gone to the bottom. Possibly the Leipzig, which was a>so attacked, was the ship sunk, but the shuffling of names has led the British to feel that there iis a still greater possibility that the l>eutseh)and was the victim. Certainly the Salmon reported that the Deutschland was with the Admiral Schcer, the heavy cruisers Blueher and Admiral Hipper, and '.he battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau when the attack was made. At the same time it does not do so insist on the point too much. New Zealalnd was once involved in a name change, which is not u:iusual in a fleet. This Dominion was concerned when the battleship New Zealand was christened Zealadia before the World War in order thai the name New Zealand might be given to the new battle cruiser presented by us to the Navy.