THE WAR AT SEA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20096, 16 November 1939, Page 5

THE WAR AT SEA

SMALL VESSELS SUNK

BRITISH SHIP OVERDUE

NEW GERMAN WARNING

ATTACKS BY AIRCRAFT (Elflt, Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Nov. 10, Noon,) LONDON, Nov. 15. The Admiralty announces that the four men who were reported to be missing from the destroyer, the sinking of which was reported yesterday, are safe. Another missing man was found seriously injured.

The steamer Newton Beech, with a crew of 40, is three weeks overdue at Newcastle. The last message reported all well.

The steamer Georgots collided with a partially submerged wreck on the north-east coast. Twenty-two members of the crew escaped in a lifeboat. Nine men, including the skipper, were drowned when the steamer Woodtown was blown up by an explosion and sank within a minute, leaving only a great column oLsmoke. Thirteen in’cn wCre aboard. The' survivors were picked up by a coastal steamer. Down in Baltic A message from Kaunas, Lithuania, states that the cargo steamers Panevezys and Nida were sunk in the Baltic near the Estonian coast. The Nida was carrying British coal. A report, from Lisbon states that Captain Sorensen, of the Norwegian freighter Jenny, reports that a U-boat stopped him and threatened to torpedo the Jenny if it did not supply the submarine with food. Captain Sorensen complied and the submarine submerged, but a few minutes later British destroyers appeared and fired depth charges. Oil then appeared on the water. I An official German communique claims that a U-boat sank 26,000 tons of shipping and captured a prize. The Berlfn newspaper, the Volklscher Beobachter, foreshadows the use of aeroplanes against merchantmen, declaring that if merchantmen use guns a plane has the right to employ its own weapons. Aeroplanes successfully attacked merchantmen in the Spanish war and could halt a vessel and force it to submit to search bv naval craft.