ATTACKS ON SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 January 1940, Page 5

ATTACKS ON SHIPPING

GERMAN PLANES ACTIVE ON BRITISH COAST Another Raid Yesterday FURTHER DETAILS OF PREVIOUS DAY’S OPERATIONS (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) According' to a Daventrj' broadcast this morning, German planes carried out a second attack on shipping on the British coast yesterday. At least four ships were attacked. ' The raiders’ activities extended from the. Thames to Southern Scotland. A lifeboat has put out to go to the assistance of a small ship of less than 1000 tons. British pursuit fighters went up and drove off the raiders. A cablegram from London states that if is estimated that 18 German planes bombed and gunned at least 12 freighters and two lightships during the. previous day’s raids. Several seamen were killed and wounded. The majority of the ships escaped, for which reason the attacks cannot be reckoned as a success. z Ten bombs were dropped on the Latvian steamer, Tautmila (3724 tons) in the North Sea, killing seven. Another member of the crew was seen adrift in a boat which had been damaged by a bomb, and a lifeboat is searching for this boat-. A patrol boat landed the captain, his wife and 15 members of the crew on tlie Norfolk coast. The British steamer, Gripfast, after an attack, reached port badly damaged. One member of the crew was dead and one was wounded. The Otterpool also reached port with two wounded. One member of her crew declared that a Ifeinkel raked the ship with machine-gun fire, wounding both the gunners as they were running to their stations. The captain lay on the bridge and fired on the raider with a rifle each time it swooped. The plane flew into clouds when three British fighters appeared. A lightship, which was badly damaged, has been abandoned. An eight-hour search failed to locate her two boats. In a raid over the Shetlands a number of small bombs were dropped, but no damage is reported. The raiders on the east coast did not reach land, and a number were, driven off by British fighters despite the fact that the weather has badly disorganised transport in the country.

TEN BOMBS DROPPED

ATTACK ON NEUTRAL SHIP CASUALTIES AMONG THE CREW. VESSEL CATCHES FIRE. LONDON, January 29. Ships which reported attacks off the Kentish coast were the Miriam, 1903 tons, British Officer, tanker 6990 tons, Athelmonarch, tanker, 8995 tons, and Dan-y-Bryn, 5160 tons. Other ships which reported attacks at various points were the Stanburn, 2881 tons, Otterpool, 4867 tons, Knitsley, 2772 tons and Wellpark, 4649 tons. The attacks extended from shortly after 9 a.m. till nearly midday. Describing the bombing of the Tautmila, Captain Dreisman said: “The devils flew over the deck so low I thought the propellors were going to smash up. My ship, which was built in England, stood 10 bombs without sinking. She’s out there now burning to the water’s edge. We had Latvian flags painted on both her sides, but the planes ignored them. Bombs fell in the hold and engineroom; steam gushed out and then she caught fire. Another bomb fell on top of the crew as they were lowering the boat, killing some and throwing others into the sea. Bombs were still falling as we got out the second boat. I pushed my wife in first, and then we piled in. The cook stopped to put on clothing. but a bomb exploded on top of him.” NAZI CLAIM NINE VESSELS DESTROYED. BRITISH PLANE SHOT DOWN. BERLIN. January 30. An official announcement states that the raiding resulted in the destruction of seven armed merchantmen! and two patrol boats. It is claimed that one British plane was shot down near Hartlepool and that all the Germans returned. NEUTRALS WARNED AGAINST SEEKING SAFETY OF CONVOYS. “CONSIDERATION” BY U-BOAT COMMANDERS.

RUGBY, January 29. A further German attempt to frighten neutral countries into ceasing their trade with Britain is not likely to prove successful in view of the wellknown facts. Rear-Admiral Doenitz, in an interview to the “Boersen Zeitung.” warned neutral ships against seeking the safety of the British convoys since by sailing in convoys of British warships they would "lose the special consideration which the German U-boat commanders otherwise show to neutral shipping.” Apart from the dubious value of this "special consideration” in view of the recent German actions on neutral shipping. only one neutral ship has been sunk when unescorted. SHIP BELIEVED LOST EIGHTEEN OF CREW MISSING. TRAWLER MACHINE-GUNNED. (Received This Day, 10 a.m.) LONDON, January 30. It is feared that the steamer Eston has been lost in the North Sea. Eighteen members of the crew are missing. A plane machine-gunned the Grimsby trawler Rigoletto in the North Sea. killing the skipper and mate. A message from Copenhagen states that the steamer Fredensborg was mined off the Scottish coast and twenty of the crew were lost.

SUCCESS OF CONVOYS PROTECTION TO NEUTRAL AND OTHER SHIPS. FIFTEEN LOST OUT OF 7388. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11 a.m.) RUGBY. January 30. A survey of the working of the convoy system up to January 24 shows that 7388 British. Allied and neutral ships were escorted by British convoys. Of these 15 were lost under convoy, this being 0.20 per cent of the total, contrasting with German Admiral Docnitz's statement that neutral ships con-

DRAMATIC SALVAGE CREW OF DUTCH SHIP RESCUED. REPORTED NAUSEOUS GAS MINE. LONDON, January 29 A salvage tug, dashing to assist the Dutch ship Nora (298 tons), saved her from foundering in the nick of time. The Nora, with her bow blown ofi. sank so quickly that only the stern was visible when the tug raced alongside and threw a hawser, which the crew made fast. The tug took off five of the crew and picked up a sixth, who had been blown off the deck by the explosion and clung to a floating gangplank for half an hour. The tug. then towed the halfsubmerged vessel to land and beached her. The incoming tide drove her through the pier, smashing a gap a hundred yards wide, and she now lies on her side on the beach. The captain and two of the crew are in hospital. It is revealed that the anchor of the Dutch tanker. Mamura fouled a mine when the ship was raising her anchor. The cable snapped and members of the crew were blown off their feet, but the ship was not damaged. A message from Oslo says that Mr Alfred Faste, second mate of the British steamer Biarritz, which was mined and sunk with a number of fatalities last week, suggests the existence of a new species of mine by a statement that nauseous gas after the explosion ' clung to the crew’s clothing and made the crew of the rescuing Norwegian steamer Borgholm vomit enervating them and causing semi-incapability. SHIPS CHARTERED FOR CARRYING BRITISH COAL TO FRANCE. LONDON, January 30. British and French shippers have chartered fifty small Norwegian ships mostlj' for carrying British coal to France. PLANE SIGHTED DRIVEN TO SEA BY FIGHTERS. , MACHINE-GUN FIRE HEARD. (Received This Day, -.10 a.m.) LONDON, January 30. A large grey plane, believed to bo German, was sighted on the East Coast, heading north. Three fighters pursued it out to sea. Machine-guns were heard but no warnings were sounded. WEEK’S LOSSES SIXTEEN SHIPS REPORTED SUNK. ONE BRITISH, TWO FRENCH AND OTHERS NEUTRAL. RUGBY. January 30. During the week ended at midnight on Sunday 10 merchant ships were lost by enemy action. These comprised one British, two French, and 13 neutrals.

voyed by British would lose “the special considerations which the U-boat commanders show towards neutral shipping.” It is noteworthy that only one of the convoyed ships lost was a neutral. While these great Allied and neutral merchant fleets are at sea 29 per cent of the whole German mercantile navy still seeks the shelter of neutral ports. Of 350 German vessels which were in neutral harbours at the outbreak of the war, 21, totalling 89.000 tons have been captured by the Allies, and 23 comprising 139.23(1 tons have been scuttled to avoid capture.