THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, February 19, 1940. A BRITISH NAVAL EXPLOIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24226, 19 February 1940, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, February 19, 1940. A BRITISH NAVAL EXPLOIT

One of the exciting, and, to the Allies, gratifying tales of the naval aspect of the war has been unfolded during the week-end in the rounding up of the Altmarck, an armed auxiliary of the German fleet for which the British Navy has been very much on the look-out ever since the Graf Spee was disposed of. The Altmarck served the purpose of a prison ship for crews of British vessels sunk by the German pocket battleship in the South Atlantic. Last week she was discovered creeping' down the Norwegian coast, with the object of getting back to a German port through neutral waters with her prisoners. What happened has been graphically told in the cabled story. The honours go to British destroyers, which intercepted the Altmarck, and especially to. the Cossack. Acting on Admiralty instructions, the Cossack entered the fiord in which the Altmarck was sheltering, and, after some unsatisfactory parleying with the Norwegian gunboat which was on the scene, was laid in traditional British fashion alongside the Nazi ship, the crew of which made a resistance which was speedily subdued. The hatches were lifted and between three and four hundred British seamen who had been held prisoner below decks were released and taken on board the destroyer. After completing what Admiralty officials are credited with describing as “ a very fine job indeed,” the Cossack returned to Leith to receive a merited ovation. Other British destroyers are , apparently keeping the grounded Altmarck under observation. The conditions under which so many British seamen suffered confinement for so long a period in what has been not? inaptly termed “the infamous Nazi hell-ship ’’ provide a chapter of the tale in themselves. The circumstances of their dramatic and exciting rescue reflect the efficacy of the British Navy’s watch and ward. In this case the navy acted with firmness yet with restraint. It rescued British seamen from miserable confinement and saved them from eventual internment in Germany. For it to have done less would have been unthinkable. The diplomatic repercussions will settle themselves. ' The Norwegian Government is protesting against the British action, spurred on thereto by energetic representations from Berlin. The reported comments in Nazi official circles and the howl of rage and abuse from the Nazi press are merely amusing. The British Admiralty was careful in its procedure. An essential fact is that the Norwegians were permitting their territorial waters to be used by a German vessel .to convey British prisoners to a German port. The suggestion that they did not know that British prisoners were on board must appear strange, as apparently they claimed to have searched the Altmarck. The justification for the British procedure will not be affected by quibbles about neutrality violation, especially in the light of Nazi sinkings of vessels without warning in neutral waters.