BRUSH ON SHIP

Chronicle (Levin), 19 July 1947, Page 5

BRUSH ON SHIP

. Press Assn.-

Naval Party Fires Oa Jewish Immigrants

By Telegravh

-Copyright

Received Saturday, 10.55 a.m. JERUSALEM, July 18. The immigrant ship Presidcnt Warfield arrived in Haifa Harbour this afternoon. It is officially stated that three British sailors were injured on the vessel. Steam, tear gas, and fuel oil were nsed in an attempt to repel the sailors, and it was reported later from Haifa that two immigrants were killed or died from injuries received in fighting aboard the ship. An official statement said that the naval boarding party opened fire when two men attempted to decapitate a naval rating with an axe, and also when another man was about to fire a rifle. It is be^lieved that the naval fire missed in both cases, but it caused the men to drop their weapons. Reuter's correspondent says that the Jewish illegal immigrants offered no further resistance after their brush with the naval boarding party. On arrival at Haifa nnder the eye of the chairman of the United States' special committee on Palestine, Mr. Sandstrom, they obediently transferred to the ferry ship Empire Vigour for transportation to holding camps on Cyprus. The unnamed captain of rhe President Warfield, broadcasting over Haganah's secret radio, appealed to the United Nations' commission to intervene on behalf of his passengers. He claimed that the British had committed an act of piracy by boarding the ship outside territorial waters.