ATTACKS ON NEUTRALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 March 1940, Page 5

ATTACKS ON NEUTRALS

DECLARATION OF GERMAN POLICY. A DAMAGING ADMISSION. (Britlsn Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 11. According to the Copenhagen newspaper “Berlingske Aftenavis” a Norwegian shipowners’ representative was told by Germany that Norwegian ships in transit between neutral countries would be examined under prize court rules and would not be sunk before an examination had taken place, and that Norwegian ships sailing from Britain to Norway with coal or similar cargoes would not be attacked but would be examined. The German Admiralty would at once give the necessary instructions for implementing its promises to the German officers concerned. Though naturally welcoming any mitigation on the part of the Nazi authorities of their indiscriminate attacks on merchant vessels, naval observers in London consider significant the Nazi admission which is implicit in the nature of these promises that it is possible to ascertain the nationality and nature of vessels such as those which the Nazi airmen had been so ruthlessly attacking since the outbreak of the war. No longer now can doubt exist that every one of the countless attacks by Nazi aircraft on neutral merchant vessels has been deliberate —a mere incident in a predetermined policy.

An earlier message from London read; Germany has officially informed Norway of the conditions under which she considers the German navy and air force are entitled to attack neutral ships without warning. Neutral ships are to be attacked if thev are sailing in enemy convoy, it they are without ordinary lights and nationality mark, if they zig-zag in their course, if they use their wireless to give military information, and it they refuse to stop when called upon to do so. Neutral vessels sailing together but not in enemy convoy, are advised to exercise strict caution, especially in waters where there aie enemy warships. The information was conveyed through the German Legation at Oslo to the Norwegian Ship Owners Association, which inquired what instructions Germany had given to the navy and air force concerning sea warfare.