BREMEN IN PORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 December 1939, Page 8

BREMEN IN PORT

AFTER BEING AT MERCY OF SUBMARINE GERMAN OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF INCIDENT. ALLEGED INTERVENTION OF PLANE. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) LONDON. December 12. With reference to the action of a British submarine in allowing the Bremen to pass unharmed, a naval expert explains that international law prohibits the sinking of a merchant ship without warning, and without making provision for those aboard reaching safety in open boats. The Bremen possibly was too far from land for those aboard thus to reach safety. The submarine could not accommodate them, and moreover could not take a ship of such a size as a prize, owing to the speed of the liner. Finally, the Bremen is armed and the submarines' action in not torpedoing her contrasts with German violations of international law. The enemy does not hesitate to torpedo even neutral vessels, leaving the passengers and crew to their fate.

The German Official News Agency in Berlin announces that the Bremen has arrived safely in German waters. It admits that a British submarine approached the Bremen within torpedo range in the North Sea. but says it was forced to submerge by a German aeroplane, which was not convoying the liner. “It was the submarine's bad luck that th'e plane happened to see her,” the news agency declares.