ATTACKS ON SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 December 1938, Page 7

ATTACKS ON SHIPS

PARTICULARS OF BRITISH LOSSES OFFICERS AND MEN KILLED — FRANCO’S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. STATEMENT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 12. In a House of Commons answer the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr R. A. Butler, said that since the outbreak of the Spanish civil war 120 incidents had occurred in which British ships had suffered interference or damage by the Spanish nationalist forces. In 19 of these cases the ships concerned had been in territorial waters. The bulk of the damage had been relatively slight. The British Government, he said, held General Franco's forces responsible for all these incidents. Forty-eight officers and men and also three nonintervention officers had ' lost their lives in these attacks, and 64 officers and men were known to have been injured.

Apart from the case of damage to H.M.S. Hunter, no detailed claim had yet been presented to the Burgos authorities in respect of these attacks though the Government reserved the right to claim compensation in due course.

Mr Butler reiterated that as General Franco did not possess belligerent rights and the right to take ships or cargoes to any prize court, General Granco’s prize court at Palma was illegal and its decisions illegal. PRISONERS SHOT. CHARGE AGAINST REBELS. PARIS, December 13. The international committee for the liberation of international volunteers from rebel prisons in Spain, states that, of the 3000 or 4000 volunteers taken prisoners during the war, only 300 are alive, the remainder having been shot.

The rebels, it is stated, shot all prisoners in the first eight months of the war and only began to spare them after' their defeat at Guadalajara in the hope of exchanging Italian prisoners.