FALSE CHARGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 January 1940, Page 5

FALSE CHARGE

AGAINST BRITISH CRUISERS IN ACTION AGAINST GRAF SPEE. DISPROVED BY URUGUAYAN REPORT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Janaury .10. It may be recalled that attempts were made by the propaganda authorities in Germany to explain away the defeat of the Admiral Graf Spec by alleging that the British cruisers used mustard gas. These allegations were denied at the time by the British Admiralty, which stated that no mustard’ gas grenades or shells had ever been made for or used by the Royal Navy.

The charges were, however, repeated, and an attempt was made to give them substance by citing the opinion of a German Uruguayan doctor, Dr Walter Meerhof, whose Nazi proclivities are well known in Montevideo, and who by his own admission based his opinion on the testimony of photographers. The report of a medical commission officially appointed by the Uruguayan Ministry of National Defence, particulars of which reached London today, finally disposes of these baseless charges. The document bears nine signatures, and reads as follows: “After careful examination of all the wounded and sick from the battleship Admiral Graf Spec, who were treated in the military hospital and in the Pasteur Hospital, a special technical commission appointed by the DirectorGeneral of thp Army Medical Corps declares that it has found not the slightest lesion or symptoms which could give rise lo suspicion that they have been affected by war gases.’’