DARING ACT OF SEA PIRACY

Chronicle (Levin), 16 December 1947, Page 5

DARING ACT OF SEA PIRACY

(N.Z.P.A.-

■Reuter

WEALTH OF LOOT AND SIX PASSENGERS TAKEN IN RAID ON DUTCH SHIP

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Received Tuesday, 9.50 a.m.

HONG KONG, Dec. 15. Pirates,„disguised as passengers and with arms as fcargo, carried out the most daring post-war piracy aboard Ihe Dutch 5C00-ton ship Van Heutz on Sunday afternoon, off the South China coast, north of Hong Kong. The act is described as the biggest outrage for many years off the ("hina- coast and was entirely successful.

Twenty-nve men disgiused as passengers overcame the j ship's company and passengers with revolvers and £ub-machine-giftis on Sunday after- j noon, whe nthe Van Heutz was| 80 miles north of Hong Kong j bound for Swatow. They held control of the ship until daylight today, when they escaped to the China coast with an enormous hoard of loot and took six first-class Chinese passengers for ransom. The attac-k occurred towards the end of the afternoon siesta,

, when armed men herded the officers into two cabins and the ! crew of 160 Chinese into their j quarters at revolver point. Captain Kavliek and Chief Mate G. Altons were ordered to steer the ship into the unchartered Honghai Bay, where by a miracle she did not strand. Meanwhile, the pirate gang ransacked the cabins of firstclass passengers and wrested jewellery, ornaments ' and money from the 1600 Chinese passengers.