Mystery of Missing Seamen

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 308, 30 December 1939, Page 8

Mystery of Missing Seamen

GRAF SPEE’S VICTIMS Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Dec. 29. Considerable uncertainty is being felt in Auckland shipping circles concerning the whereabouts of the majority of the complements of the Blue Star steamer Doric Star (10,860 tons) and the Shaw, Savill and Albion steajjier Tairoa (7983 tons). Although a few of tho crews of the ships, which were among nine sunk by the Admiral Graf Spee, were landed at Monte Video by the German warship, the only message concerning the remainder has been that they were put on an enemy auxiliary. The Doric Star, bound from Auckland to England, via Sydney and Capo Town, with a heavy cargo of New Zealand produce, was sunk by the Admiral Graf Speo in the South Atlantic on December 2, and the Tairoa, en route from Melbourne to England, was sunk the following day. Cablegrams stated that the master, Captain YV. Stubbs, and four officers of tho Doric Star, and seven of the crew of the Tairoa, including Mr. A. D. Dickson, an Aucklander, were released at Monte Video.

Of the complement of the Doric Star, 61 remain unaccounted for. They include three members of the New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, R. J. Craig, aged 19, and G. J. Lynch, aged 21, of Auckland, and \V. J. Wheeler, of Dunedin. All three served the defensive armament of the Doric Star. Those of the crew of the Tairoa still missing total 73 men and include the master, Captain W. B. S. Starr.

No announcement has been made of the name of the auxiliary to which the Admiral Graf Speo transferred tho crews of sunken merchant ships, but it is aSsumed in Auckland shipping quarters, who naturally have a great interest in the matter, that it may be the liner Windhuk, of 16,662 tons. The Windhuk, a fast passenger motor-ship in the German Africa Line’s service, ranks among Germany’s best merchant vessels. After spending the first months of the war in the shelter of Lobito Bay, Portuguese West Africa, she slipped away to sea under cover of darkness early in November in company with the liner Adolph YY’oermann. No word of her movements has since been received, possibly through her speed keeping her from the Allied searching squadrons. Every other German ship which Aaa been reported as leaving Africa and America since the start of war appears to have been accounted for, possibly with one or two minor exceptions, and it is therefore likely that the Windhuk may have been the mystery auxiliary. The Adolph Woermann, the Windhuk’s companion in Lobito Bay, and the Watussi both had to bo scuttled soon after leaving African ports, and two other merchant vessels, the Henning Oldendorff and Ussukuma, were both captured off tho coast. The only ship which cleared an African port and has eluded the British is the Windhuk.