WAR WOUNDS SORE YET

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 826, 21 November 1929, Page 9

WAR WOUNDS SORE YET

CONTROVERSY ABOUT U-BOAT CAPTAIN’S WELCOME BiTTER TALK IN BRITAIN LONDON, Wednesday. | Following the publication of a ! poignant letter by a Liverpool mother ! who lost two sons in ships sunk by submarines in the war, Commander Lewis, formerly the prisoner of Captain Hashagen (the U-boat commander, who has been warmly welcomed in England), and now his host, has written to her saying he fully sympathises with her cry. He says he lost four brothers and his sister lost her husband in the war. He had invited Captain Hashagen to England in the interests of peace and also from motives of gratitude. The British public should be told of the humane attitude of at least one com- ' mander of a German submarine. This i letter has brought forth many others i of protest. | One of the most notable is from 1 Lieutenant-Colonel Graham Deakin, who questions Commander Lewis’s right to regard Captain Hashagen as a good fellow when most of tlie brave men who were compelled to serve under Lewis were murdered, though Lewis was saved. “Personally,” he says, “I would consider myself a traitor to those men. and I am happy to think that Lewis’s feeling is not typical of that of the i majority of British officers.” The writer of another protesting letter asks the British friends of Cap- ! tain Hashagen to take him to the i Sailors’ Memorial on Tower Hill and | read over the names of all the ships ; lie torpedoed. EFFORT TO END WAR ‘T « an understand the feelings of i the Liverpool mother.” says Captain \ Hashagen. “There are other mothers ! in Germany who. owing to the loss of \ their sons and husbands, still feel bitterly toward the British and the i French. Last evening 2,000 people I attended the meeting at Reading > to hear Commander Lewis and myself speak. Many probably had lost dear ones in the war, but they, like me. are determined there shall be no more war if we can help it. “T hope this English mother will not allow her feelings to interfere with the good work of everlasting peace. T i did not come to England to boast, but i l came at my ex-prisoner’s invitation. I The fact that we are friends shows 1 j 1 did not use unnecessary cruelty. “When there is war we must do what our country demands. War means j cruelty and hardship. It is to help to j end it that I came here.”