URUGUAYAN REPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1939, Page 7

URUGUAYAN REPORT

GRAF SPEE PREPARING TO SAIL DEPARTURE OF LADEN TANKER. DAMAGE TO THE BATTLESHIP. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) NEW YORK. ‘December 14. The National Broadcasting Company, broadcasting from Uruguay, believes that the Graf Spee is preparing to sail almost immediately, to run the gauntlet of the British death watch outside Montevideo. The German tanker Tacoma has sailed, carrying 600,000 gallons of fuel oil and presumably will await the Graf Spee. The broadcaster further describes the damage to the Graf Spee as a hole, five or six feet in diameter, on the port side 60 feet from bow and 5 feet above the waterline, the forward observation tower is split through and one of the towers near the forward six-inch guns is practically torn from its base. The United .Press Association’s Montevideo correspondent says sources close to the German Legation expect the Graf Spee to leave within a week. NO GAS SHELLS GERMAN STORY DENIED BY ADMIRALTY. 'Received This Day, 9.0 a.m.) LONDON, December 14. The Admiralty denies that statement of the German Legation at Monte Video, that the Graf Spec’s casualties were mostly caused because the British used mustard gas grenades, saying: ”The allegation is entirely without foundation as no mustard gas grenades or shells have ever been made for or used by the Navy.”

THE BRITISH CAPTAINS MANY NEW ZEALANDERS ON ACHILLES. INCLUDING TWO OFFICERS. Captain IT. H. Harwood, 0.8. E., who is in command of H.M.S. Exeter, is also commodore commanding the South American Division of the American and West Indies Squadron. He specialised in torpedoes in 1912 and served during the Great War as torpedo officer in the armoured cruiser Sutlej and the battleship Royal Sovereign. He took up his present appointment in September. 1936. The South American Division of the America and West Indies Squadron was reconstituted in 1931 "in order to further British interests in South American waters.” Captain C. H. L. Woodhouse is in command of H.M.S. Ajax to which he was appointed in October, 1937. During the early months of the Great War he was a lieutenant in H.M.S. Bristol in which he was present at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on December 8, 1914, when Admiral Graf von Spee’s Pacific Squadron was destroyed by Admiral Sturdee’s squadron. Captain Woodhouse was present in H.M.S. Malaya at the Battle of Jutland. He was promoted to his present rank on December 31, 1934.

Captain W. E. Parry, who is in command of H.M.S. Achilles, is, like Captain Harwood, a specialist in torpedoes. He passed out at the head of his term of cadets from Dartmouth and the training cruiser Cumberland and gained five "firsts" in his examination for the rank of lieutenant. He served during the Great War as torpedo officer of the light cruiser Birmingham in the Grand Fleet. He was promoted captain on December 31, 1934. In 1936-37 he was in command of the Anti-Sub-marine Establishment at Portland, and in 1938 he served at the Imperial Defence College. Captain Parry was appointed to H.M.S. Achilles, his first sea command in that rank, on January 27 of this year, succeeding Captain I. G. Glennie, who now commands H.M.S. Hood. There are two New Zealand officers in the Achilles, Lieutenant R. E. Washbourn. of Nelson, and Gunner G. R. Davis-Goff, of Wellington. A large proportion of tiie ratings, are. of course young New Zealanders.