HUGE MINEFIELDS LAID

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 115, 13 April 1940, Page 7

HUGE MINEFIELDS LAID

NAZIS CUT OFF FROM NORTH SEA ALLIES’ STUPENDOUS PLAN GERMANS IN NORTH ISOLATED (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) N Received April 13, 10.20 a.m. LONDON, April 12. The Admiralty has announced that mines have been laid over a considerable area in the Skagerrak and the Kattegat touching the Danish and Norwegian coasts and Swedish territorial waters, also affecting the whole of the North Sea touching Dutch waters. The westernmost limit area extends 420 miles northwards from a point off Holland near Schilling to sixty miles south-west of Bergen. The minefield then spreads eastwards to Denmark, including the Skagerrak. The southernmost portion of the mined area includes extensive fields laid immediately after the outbreak. A channel about twenty miles wide is provided through the middle of the fields for neutral shipping. It is stated that the fields do not enter Swedish and Dutch territorial waters. The new minefields mean that Germany is completely cut off from the North Sea. Germany is no longer able to make contact with Norway.

ENEMY FORCES CUT OFF. It is pointed out that the minefields have not been completed. The laying might occupy many months. It is recalled that the northern barrage in the last war took a year to lay. The British United Press correspondent in North Norway states that the Germans at Narvik are cut off from the world, according to an eye- witness, who declared that the British destroyers sank three German destroyers and set on fire two, which burned throughout the day when they went aground. (According to a broadcast from Daventry, the minefield is the largest ever laid.) The Germans advancing eastward from Narvik last night withdrew back to Narvik. The Germans advancing northward are also withdrawing. About eighty German prisoners from merchantmen have arrived at an east Scottish town. Norway has officially informed France that she will fight side by side with the Allies against the German invasion. NATAL BATTLE IN PROGRESS. Swedish sources report that a naval battle is in progress off Trondheim. Both sides are supported by ’planes, and the sound of firing was heard many miles inland. A German day communique issued in Berlin states“We repulsed an attack by British aeroplanes in the Trondheim district. British land and sea forces tried in vain to penetrate the Trondheim Fiord. We took over more coastal batteries at Trondheim and made them ready for action.” Norwegian refugees arriving on the Swedish frontier say that Bergen is occupied by between 2000 and 3000 troops. The “pocket” battleship Deutschland is reported to be at Trondheim, where 1200 Germans have landed.